We were laughing out loud. We just said, "That's a very good question, Natalie."

September 1, 2008
School is going well. Today was not a vacation day for us, since we only have another week and four days and we'll be taking our first week off. (We go four weeks, on one week off.) We're settling into a pretty good schedule, and I'm excited to be starting with a homeschool co-op here in about a week. I'm still not sure what classes the kids will be taking through the co-op this term, but in addition to weekly co-op classes, it has a monthly mom's support group, field trips throughout the year, and once a month "show and tell" sessions where each kid works on a project relating to a central subject, then they bring in their projects and show them to the group. This first one in September will be about the Olympics, which we're excited about because Natalie and Ethan really got into watching the Olympics when it was on.  I found the group at this year's CHEO conference, and was excited to find out that it was in New Albany, which is just around the corner from me. There are lots of other homeschool support groups throughout the Columbus area, but none that I could find that were really close by and also had a nice age range of kids. Lots of them had only middle or high schoolers, or all younger kids. I was really looking for a group with a wide range of ages, and this is exactly what this group has, so I was really happy to find it. 

The biggest challenge I'm finding with schooling so far this year is how to occupy Ella. Last year, she often nursed to sleep and then napped for a good portion of our school time, at least until we did the more active things after lunch, but this year of course the nursing time is gone. I could, I guess, start school after lunch when Ella goes down for her nap, but I really like to start in the morning so that it's not hanging over us all day to get started. One day last week we went to an early lunch with some friends, and it was really hard getting Natalie to focus and get settled in the afternoon. (Let alone Ethan, who was a total loss for the day. I only require him to sit and listen for Bible time, but then he usually participates for History and Science as well. That day, though, nothing.) Usually Ella is pretty content to play with the markers and white board, but there have been a couple times when she just has had an all-out tantrum as I'm trying to teach, and that just doesn't work. For anyone. Today I caved and let her watch Elmo during some of our time, but that goes against my personal rule of no TV during "school time" (10 am to 4 pm, whether we're actually "doing school" that whole time or not). So I have to figure out something pretty soon. (She's already gone through three of my dry erase markers and we've only started our third week!!)

The weaning is now complete, I think. She hasn't asked to nurse in about a week now, even at naptime. She's gotten very good at just relaxing in either me or Phil's arms and going to sleep as we walk around with her. Most of the time it's only been taking five minutes or less of walking around the room with her until she's conked out. The reality of being completely done, has started to hit me. Most of the time I feel really happy and refreshed by the idea -- I'm happy to know that I can plan to go away for an evening and not have a screaming baby. I have a feeling of freedom that I haven't felt since, oh, June of 2001 -- the last time I was neither pregnant nor nursing. But there are moments that I've felt sad. This weekend, we went around cleaning out closets that have just been stuffed with stuff since we moved in, and when I got down to the slings and the Moby, found down in a box of winter gloves and scarves, it made me feel sad that I don't have much reason to use them anymore. Not that I don't want to, because I would love it if Ella would still stay happily contained onto me when we're grocery shopping, since she refuses to sit in the grocery cart these days. But she wants to WALK, to be right there with the other two. Unfortunately, she doesn't yet have the self-control to stay close to me to keep from running off and getting into things, so I do really wish she'd still happily snuggle with me in a sling!  

It's a good thing we think the little girl is so adorably cute and we're so in love with her, because she is definitely more strong-willed and prone to get into trouble than her older two siblings were at her age. Ella is going to end up being the one who gives me the most gray hairs, I think.  

I just copied and pasted this below from what I posted last week on my Flickr:

Monday night (a week ago now) as I was cooking dinner, Phil took Ella upstairs with him while he changed out of his work clothes, as he does every night. He had to run downstairs to where I was doing laundry, to grab a pair of shorts, then came right back upstairs, where Ella had been playing with her car. He discovered her on the floor of our bathroom, with Phil's bottle of Claritin in her hand. Opened, and several pills crumbled up in her mouth. Phil swept out her mouth and got several crumbs, but he saw at least one pill in the back of her throat that he couldn't reach. We called poison control and they told us to take her down to Children's. 

We have absolutely no idea how many she ingested, but it could have been, at worst case, up to 50. (Not likely, because Phil's been using the pills in that bottle for at least a few weeks, but we're not sure, so we had to tell them a "worst case" of 50.)

So, they gave her two ounces of activated charcoal. Two ounces might not sound like a lot, until you're trying to force-feed two ounces of liquid charcoal down your baby's throat. It was terrible. Terrible. It took me and two nurses to hold her down and force open her mouth to take the stuff. The bed looked like a volcano had erupted all over it, and so did Ella and I and the two nurses. After that ordeal, during which I was so glad Phil had taken the other two kids out for a walk around the hospital (it would have definitely given them nightmares!) we got ourselves and the room cleaned up, and she had to be monitored for four hours. She seemed overly sleepy, but we don't know if that was just the result of coming down from the trauma of the charcoal feeding, or from the Claritin in her body. She slept until 10:30 on Tuesday morning. I woke up a few times through the night just because I wanted to check on her to make sure she was sleeping soundly but not TOO soundly, if you know what I mean. 

By Wednesday (today) she seems to have absolutely no adverse effects, and seems as happy as ever. Praise God! 

I took her to her doctor for a checkup yesterday afternoon, and everything checked out good. Heart rate normal, eyes dilating correctly, etc. 

While you're thinking about it-- go and make sure all of your pill bottles (even the "child-proof" ones) are put where your kids cannot possibly reach them!

One funny thing I had to mention -- you have no idea how many concerned questions we got about Ella... you know, the ingestion of pills, her shiner on her left eye, the fairly recent admission to the hospital for a broken leg...

The poor third kid.

I'm a little surprised we didn't get a visit from Children's Services last week.