Some Clara Items

Two weeks down and her finger is practically completely healed. There's the teeniest of scabs, but really that's it. She does, however, seem to be much more concerened about other people being hurt. Especially if she sees a band aid on my finger or 'the King' in her Cars book (when Chick makes him crash). She'll bring her book in to me every time saying "Hurt! Hurt! Hurt! mama! HURT!" With her face all scrunched up and I have to tell her, "yes, he got hurt but look, Lightening McQueen is helping him so he'll be all better. It'll be ok! He'll get better." Then she says "help. Help." and continues through the book.

She pointed to my finger the other day with a band air on it and said "Mama. Hurt." Yes, it hurts, please don't touch it. "Mama. Door. Hurt!" No, no mama didn't hurt her finger in the door. "Me. Door." Yes, yeah you hurt your finger in the door didn't you? So we need to be careful with the doors and ask for help. "Mmhmm."

I thought it was terribly observant that she made the connection that my finger was hurt, so since she hurt hers in the door, I must have hurt mine in the door. But maybe that's just maternal bias (don't burst my bubble : )

Last night she also talked in her sleep. I went up to check on her and started to move her back onto the fouton (she was half off with her blanket in a ball under her chest) and as she rolled back onto her bed (completely asleep) she said "Mama. Plane! Mama! Plane!"

I laughed because she says that ALL DAY. We hear planes flying all the time and whenever we drive in the car we're under the approach pattern so she constantly points out the planes. I thought it was funny that she was even dreaming about it.

I think she understands a  little bit about the baby.  We've talked about the baby's bed and small baby blankets and how the baby will have to wear diapers and next month, when Clara turns two, we'll bring the baby home. She knows there's no baby in hers or daddy's bellies, only mine. And I've talked about how she can help mama read to the baby and show the baby her animals and play with the baby. . . so I'm hoping it'll all go smoothly.

She's getting much better at using "me" and "Clara" in reference to herself. Like she'll ask for "Clara Movies" or "Me Movies" (it acutally sounds like "Car jeeya!" or "Me jeeya!" but at least she points to herself as well). But at the same time Daddy and Frankie/Doggy have merged yet again. Frankie used to be gagee and Daddy used to be Gaga. But now she uses gagee for them both and it's confusing for me. She's anti "d" though, not sure why.

She says hi to lots of her toys. "Hi Pony!" "Hi Turtle!" "Hi Doggy!" and she'll say it very high pitched and get increasingly higher the more times she says hi (which is usually at least 2-4 times). She'll also put her toys to bed. She often decides her doll, llama, turtle or pony needs a nap so she'll take them upstairs and put them on her bed (pillow) and then come back downstairs and report to me. "Doll. Sleep!" "Llama. Bed!" So all her stuffed toys are migrating upstairs.

She's very into bears--but mostly at night. Her fouton has a bear cover and a bear comfortor. I've got a bunch of polar bears that are practically 3/4 her size that she's insisted on sleeping with the past few nights. She'll put her arm around the one from Sea World Australia and then ask for the prayer then just fall asleep cuddling with it (while the other bears and doggies are around her head and other side). She knows only one bear is allowed for story time though becuase otherwise there's no room for her on my lap.

She still gets shy in public or when people say hi directly to her and sometimes she still spits at them. Fortunately she's still young enough that people think it's funny. But we're working on that. We're also working on wiping boogies on a tissue instead of pants or in the mouth. AT least she points them out to me when she wipes them on her pants, so then I get a tissue and say "boogies go in tissues." Then I have her blow her nose again in case she missed any : )

She says no for EVERYTHING.
"Do you want some breakfast?" No. . . . .. . . baba. (Breakfast).
"How about some oatmeal this morning? "No. . . . . . .  momo (oatmeal).
"Do you want to pick out some undies?" No. . . . . . nunies! (as she gets some from the drawer and brings them to me).
Tyler will say "Hi Clara!" No.  (no what? No is not an appropriate response to a greeting, Clara.)

I can't even imagine how insane I would be right now if she didn't still use some sign to communicate with me and if I was trying to start potty training right now. IN-SANE I would be! As it is I'm just holding on, so I always have to remind myself how much worse it could be for both of us.

She's not very articulate. I don't think, anyway, for being two (in two weeks). But I think she's ahead of the game on some other things, so I'm not too concerened that she uses the same two syllables for, like, 6 different things. She's putting words together and constantly 'talking', so I'll just serve as translator until she sorts it out. . . . and laugh at her pretend games and silly faces.

More Small Things Make Me Happy

Like when I get a massage while Clara is at home playing and loving life with Yoko-san after I got all my earrands done.

Except pick UP the packages that finally arrived becuase hte post office window doesn't opne until 10, but at least I got the slips to pick them up finally!

And even though Homac didn't have a lamp for me, they came through with this (see picture): THE MOST AWESOME PILLOW ON THE PLANET!!

They have it at the massage place and in my coop catalogue and all over the place. Homac is basically like a Home Depot, and when I passed that aisle (looking for an addition to clara's fouton, actually, since I was in the area) I saw it! And even though they sell for less than 1980 yen at other places, I dind't care. I've been sleeping so crappy with regular "american" straight block body pillows I couldn't take it anymore. Plus I think the pattern rocks too. So it just all makes me happy!

Not only THAT! But when I got home, before I could even say goodbye to Yokosan Clara was saying "bye! Bye! Mama, sleep! Sleep!" and walking upstairs. By the time I got up to her room (15 seconds behind her) she was lying down on her fouton with her blanket ready to go! I just covered her up, she asked for prayer (she's getting really good at repeating prayers when we say them) and then left. Haven't heard a peep since!

THIS DAY IS SO AWESOME!!!!

Enjoy the following pictures of Clara's rediculously crazy bedhead/mullet I took yesterday morning  : )

Small things make me happy

Like when clara wakes up at 6:20am today (nistead of 5:50am yesterday) and has taken off her pants, thrown her wet diaper in the garbage, and has pooped in her potty and is just waiting up in her room for me to come up and help wipe.

"Mama. Wipe. Mama. Wipe." As I hear her playing around in her room.

>sigh of relief< THIS I can handle.

That and also, this happened this morning:

Clara eating her cereal

"Bubbles! COOL!"

I Laughed so hard and said "DId you just say "COOL"?! That I think I made her nervous or something, but then i agreed, that bubbles in cereal ARE cool and she smiled and said it again for tyler.

Bubbles aren't new, she always comments whenever she sees them (in milk, usually) but the 'cool' was definitely a new addition.

P.S. I added pictures finally to the Space Jammie post as well as to our trip to the UCC for her finger (which does not need a splint or even a wrapping anymore, but it still looks awful.)

PS Again, these pictures are from earlier in the month, before the 'incident", just playing around with TYler.

It just never ends

So today, a week after clara smashed her finer, I was cutting a carrot for dinner this morning using the mandolin and sliced off a bit of the top of MY right, middle finger. OWW!! I forgot how bad a fingertip injury can hurt.

Fortunately clara probably forgot too becuase she managed to fall/slip while climbing onto the kitchen chair and cut her bottom lip. Not bad (no UCC trip this time thank goodness!!) but there was blood involved nonetheless.

Seriously! Just, everybody work with me and stop getting injured!!

And if the dog could stop throwing up that would be awesome too. This past week she's thrown up 5 times, three times one night and twice on the other (A few days apart), but each night she hurled once on my bed comfortor/blanket (the second time the comfortor was still in the wash, so it was a blanket).

This was, of course, AFTER Tyler got food posioning from Ankur (Indian) last friday morning at 3am. . . . it's been a busy week-plus.

But It's WAY WAY Worse when MOM is in Charge!!

>sigh<

Yesterday clara caught her finger in the closet door. She's fine (see how I start with that?) but the top of her finger got munched pretty bad (split open all across the top, parallell to the nail). Fortunately the bone dind't break and it didn't touch any nerves or anything, just split the top, but still. IT WAS AWFUL!!

The pictures are on the camera, but I haven't put them on the computer yet so here's just the story for now.

I got home from lunch and the commissary (the only errand I managed because she was being a bit of a stink. She bit me so hard on the arm at the food court that I started crying and she gave me a huge bruise and teeth marks for hours afterwards--through my coat sleeve! I wanted her to eat before playing on the playgym, that was my crime.) and had just brought all the groceries in and taken off her coat and both our shoes.

I sat down on the couch to put a movie on for her so I could put away groceries and maybe think about starting dinner and she went to the closet to open it up to get an acutal DVD case. I said "no sweet pea, I've got the movie right here" (They're all on our computer). So she starts to close the closet (accordian style closet) which she's done MANY times.

It's almost closed by her pulling on the handle but she decides to switch tactics and close it from the middle fold. I say "Be carfulL! wath your hands!" but it closed and caught her middle finger. She starts crying and I immidiately go over to her.

I think she just clipped it (which she's done before in her bedroom) and it just scared her, but after a few seconds of holding her I say "ok, let mama see" and she pulls her had away from her chest, takes her other hand off her fingers and I just see blood.

Lots and lots of blood.

I think to myself "AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! HOLY CRAP!!!!OH MY GOSH SHE CHOPPED OFF HER FINGER!!!! AAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

But I say, quite calmly, "Ok. It's ok sweet pea. We've got to clean this up. Come on."

And I pick her up as blood is literally dripping everywhere on our clothes. Take her to the kitchen to try to clean it off but realize there's no way she'll let me stick her finger under runnign water becuase I Wouldn't let someone do that to me if I was her. So I grab a paper towel, wet it, half squeeze it out and just put it over her fingers to clear some of the blood. When I pull the towel away after a few seconds I just see split open flesh.

Again, I think, "AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! OH MY GOSH IT"S SPLIT OPEN!!! WHAT DO I DO!??!!? AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!"

I think I said, "It's ok sweet pea, we'll just keep this on your finger. Shhh Shh, it's ok. Mama's got you."

I take her upstairs and give her some tylenol, becuase I figured it will help with pain and whatever happens at the UCC (urgent care center) but then I realize I have to get her TO the UCC. . . . but I need to keep pressure on the finger becuase I don't really know. .  she'll bleed out or something If I let go!!

So I've been holding her in my right arm this whole time with my left hand holding her right hand. And I manage to get the phone and call Cami without really letting go of Clara or her fingers. And I tell her clara smashed her finger in the closet door and I need to get her to the UCC but I'm not sure quite how to do that becuase i need to keep holding her finger.

Cami, being the awesome friend that she is with three children of her own, says "ok, I'll just put the kids in the car and we'll be right there. . . . are YOU ok?"

"Yeah. . . yeah, I'm just. . . .just a little emotional."

So I keep holding her until Cami arrives.  We said a prayer. . . mostly for me. . . but she completely calmed down immidiately which in turn helped me too. Clara asked to say another prayer a few seconds later and I obliged her. That's nothing new, she'll sometimes ask for 2 or 3 prayers at bedtime, but still. I wonder if she acutally made a connectio nthat time between the prayer and how she felt?

Cami arrives and she puts clara's car seat in her van and takes us to UCC. They ask to see her finger before even giving me the stupid forms to fill out, which annoyed me but I guess I understand that they might get a lot of panicky parents in there. Plus clara wasn't crying anymore or even whimpering and it only happened 30 minutes ago. Anyway, I get hte form and have to figure a way to hold her hand (She whimpers every time I let go) and fill out the forms about a 2 year old by answering questions such as "could you be pregnant? when was your last Menses?" etc etc. I skipped most of the form.

Cami called the squadron to let Tyler know we were there (I thought he was flying and just wanted him there instead of sitting in a debrief). They asked to see her finger again a few minutes later (two different people) and said "yeah, that's not good but it's not terrible." But they were still nice enough to let us skip ahead of one or two people.

She had to wash her finger off in a cup of solution and I thought "yeah right, she's two. Like she's going ot keep her hurt finger in a warm cup of wash." However, she was fine with it. She dipped it in, said "Hurt. Hurt." I said "I know, its ok, put it back in the cup and it will feel better." Dip. "Hurt. Hurt." It's ok. Dip. Then she kept it in there and started moving her fingers around ot swish it all over the place like I DON"T allow her to do with her milk at home.

We go back, they take her vitals. She takes off her socks (I never put shoes on her), we point out things and various colors around the room. Tyler arrives. She doesn't want to say hi (go figure). The doc comes in, assesses the situation and says "its a little too deep for my comfort. Before I seal it up I'd like to tak X-Ray."

Dr. Olga (I can't remeber her last name) orders the x ray. Fortunately tyler was there becuase I couldn't go in the x ray room becuase I'm prengnat. And fortunately clara was done being shy with daddy at that point so he took her back no problem.

Olga got a second opinion on the X rays from orthopedics and fortunately, the bone wasn't broken. But the next question was how to seal it up. Her finger was almost too small for stitches, plus the way it was injured, the skin was too thin to even hold a stitch anyway. But it looked a little too wide to derma bond it. . . so what to do on such a little finger?

The two (Olga and Ortho) are just standing there holding her hand out like she's giving them a high five and Tyler's just holding clara and she's just sort of looking at everyone. Not making a sound while they investigate and move her hand and fingers and stuff.

They decide to derma bond it (superglue it, basically) to keep it clean and then put a little cast/splint on it. She was practically alseep while she was soaking her hands in cleaning solution again (it didn't hurt the second time, or at least she didn't say it did). She was just leaning back against me with her blanket on her lap (I grabbed it before we left) and her hand in the cup. Then let them put the splint on and wrap her up without a fuss.

We get her in the car (Tyler sent cami and the kids home since he was going to stay) and Clara starts laughing and giggling at tyler and his hat. We get home and she starts running around and playing 'choo choo train' and laughing at the dog and just being crazy! LAUGHING! and smiling and she ate a huge dinner (good thing we had a late lunch around 2pm becuase we didn't get home until about 5:30). and ran around some more with tyler and then went to bed. She slept like a rock! I was in more pain I think than she was that night!

I checked on her a bunch, and she was completely fine. Even when I found she'd curled her hand up inside the splint and Tyler and I had to straighten out her fingers. She fidgeted, but dind't wake up.

So, in conclusion. My child is a champ rockstar who's super tough yet rediculously cute at the same time. And I'm clearly not fit to be sole caretaker of her, especially in time of emergency. She's better off with Daddy.  At least HE"S never had to take her to the emergency room!! ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

This last picture was taken on Tuesday (She did it on WEdnesday) after her follow up at 7:30am with orthopedics. She's just sitting with her right middle finger taped up watching Toy Story. Course she also got a cold this week too, so that was awesome.

An "Exercise" in Communication

So, today was the last day of the base exercise. . . . and it has clearly taken its toll in the Young household. Communication is quite difficult between a pregnant wife and a 3am wake-up husband. It's been going a little something like this:

Tyler: Ok, it's 1:53
Anna: What?
Tyler: It's 1:53
Anna: What?
Tyler: IT"S ONE FIFTY THREE!
Anna: ONE FIFTY THREE WHAT? WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?
Tyler: THE TIME!!! IT"S ONE FIFTY THREE!!!
Anna: oh
(he was making pasta and wanted to make sure he kept track of boil time and just happened to say the current time out loud and I clearly got super confused)


Anna: So how were your flights today?
Tyler: Eh, ok. I got shot down by triple A.
Anna: . . . . . . . triple A?
Tyler: Yeah
Anna: . . . . . what, like a tow truck?
Tyler: confused look
Anna: just as confused back AAA? What's that? Like a tow truck shot you down?
Tyler: Oh, I forgot you didn't know what triple A was--Anti Aircraft Artillery. I got shot down by that.
(obviously, triple A in 'pilot speak' does NOT mean Automobile Association of America, which is clearly the only triple A I've ever had to deal with)


Anna: Ok, I have to leave for mutual soon.
Tyler: what time?
Anna: Well, I'd like to leave by :45
Tyler: 5:45?
Anna: By :45
Tyler: FIVE forty five?
Anna: BY FORTY FIVE!
Tyler: I KNOW! FIVE FORTY FIVE?
Anna: I"D LIKE TO LEAVE BYYYYYYYYYYY FORTY FIVE!!
Tyler: I KNOW!! WHICH ONE?!?! FIVE or SIX?!
Anna: looking at the clock and realizing it's only 5:35 Oh! Oh. . . . um, no, Six forty five I guess. So I've got some time.
(I clearly have difficulty with the concept of "time" and it passing)

It's been a difficult week. . . . . . >sigh<

On the upside, you should check out the space jammies post again in the next few days because he actually let me take a picture of him in both the poopy suit AND the silver awesomeness! (Apparently, there was this black nylon-ish thing that they used to wear instead of the silver ones that kept tyler more warm and was called, get this, the Cat Suit. No it wasn't form fitting like the standard female catsuit--still fit like the space jammies, but still. I laughed pretty good at that one. I guess they came back from Komatsu and all the life support stuff was a little different--namely the catsuit was replaced with space jammies).

Tyler Has Space Jammies?

So, the base is in the middle of a big exercise where they pretend they were attacked and we're at war right here in Japan. It lasts about a week--Wednesday to Wednesday (but they were nice enough to pause it for Sunday). All the guys in the squadron have crazy schedules and night shifts and early shifts and everything. Tyler's show time yesterday was 3:30am so he woke up at 2am. Today's was 4am so he woke up around 3am. Eeesh.

But becuase it's an exercise he has to pull out all this gear that I normally don't see and he has to wear it all the time or most of the time so new stuff is showing up all the time at home. Like his chem gear bag, his g suit, his poopy suit and best of all--his space jammies!

They're really, I guess, just a thermal jumpsuit he wears under his poopy suit (A dry suit in case he ejects over the ocean becuase the water is so so cold) but they're this silvery grey with a diamond waffle-print thing going on.

I laughed when I saw them becuase I just wasn't used to that being under his flight suit! Then this morning around 3:15am I saw a silvery being walk across the room and sort of chuckled to myself again : )

It made me think of the Seinfeld where he wonders how everyone in the future picked out the 'uniform'. Was it just a fashion show where you come out, Silver jumpsuit, v-stripe on the chest, and everyone claps and says "Yeah, I could wear that."

So even though the excercise is sort of crappy becuase of the schedules and everything, I guess it does have some perks.  Although, to be honest, I was more than a little ticked that the exercise started literally one week after I had FINALLY put his chem gear AWAY from when he was TDY at Komatsu in December. It has a space now though, so hopefully it won't take so long to get put AWAY (stupid A-bag. So big and bulky and in my way!)

So A giraffe walks into Daiichi. . . . .

As I was dropping clara off at Daiichi Youchien today I passed a literal giraffe walking towards the building. The japanese snowsuits and buntings here are HILARIOUS! It was yellow with brown spots complete with the hoodie with the little giraffe nubber things (I don't know what they're acutally called. . . but I don't think they're the giraffe's ears). The kid had to have been just barely 18 months judging by how he was walking (or her) of course that could also have been the HUGE puffy GIRAFFE SUIT she was wearing! HAHAHahahahaha!

I've got another one for you:

So, a crow crosses the crosswalk in winter. . . . . . and slips TWICE on the ice!! HAHAHAHAHAHAhaha!!

ON the drive home I was stopped at a light and a big crow started hopping across the street in the crosswalk (I don't think American crows would have done that, but the Japanese ones seem to not believe in "jay walking"--ehh? EHH??! JAY walking?! HA!!. . . ok)

So it's almost to the other side and all of a sudden it's little feet slip forwards and it's tail hits the ground. Hops up, makes one or two more hops and slides again! HAhahahaha! Then it sort of flew the rest of the way to the snow bank. I've just never seen a bird slip on ice before and it was hilarious.

"Undies" Night

Last night I put Clara in undies around 8pm. I went to check on her around 10:30 before I went to bed and, of course, she had peed on TOP of her covers. She was sleeping soundly, however she had soaked her top fouton cover and her crochet blanket was a little wet too.

Fortunately her waterproof pad was bone dry--so I'm glad I went through that effort.

I take her wet undies off and hold her over hte potty. She just has some gas then clearly wants to get back to bed, so I put a pull up on her (baby steps) and she lies back down so I have to finagle her jammie pants on her while she's dead asleep.

I've got a bajillion blankets but lots of htem are downstairs from when I washed them, so I just covered her with her remaining dry blanket and got an extra quilt from her changing table.

I didn't notice any later wake up or anything (which sometimes happens when I change her wet diaper or help her go potty before I go to bed--probably becuase her diaper gets so wet that it wakes her up. It'd wake me up if I was her) but it wasn't an early wake up either. So that's nice.

Maybe we'll try again and I'll check on her a little earlier. . . If she wants. Otherwise I might wait until the baby gets here becuase then I"ll acutally already be up and I don't think it'll be that big a deal to feed the baby then check on clara. Like I said, I'll be up anyway.