Annalie racing around the park from bethany actually on Vimeo.

That’s how long it took for Annalie to go from lurching along on her tiptoes, arms outstretched for balance, to walking normally. She still walks with a bit of a limp, but she’s walking. Today as we were leaving to go to dinner, I asked if she wanted me to carry her to the car, thinking that it would be easier to get her into the carseat if I were already carrying her, and she nonchalantly replied, “No thanks, I want to walk.”

We were at Troy’s mom and stepdad’s for significantly less time than the week we had planned, but we packed a lot into the one day and change we were there. For more photos, see 39 hours at Mom & Tom’s – a photoset on Flickr

When I told her she’d done a great job with the blue bear’s smile, she said, “Yes, he is very happy. And this one,” she pointed to the yellow bear, “is surprised!” Which is how Annalie felt when she came downstairs one morning this past week and found a play kitchen sitting in the living room.

“It’s a kitchen of my very own for me to play with!” Then she squealed and giggled before dumping the box of play food on the floor. She spent the morning making elaborate soups and cakes and serving them to me on her plastic flower plates from IKEA. It was a good morning.

You might notice that in these photos, Annalie is very nearly standing up normally. I have not mentioned her injured foot lately, partly because I have mixed feelings about the whole situation and partly because improvements seem to be occurring at a glacial pace. It’s been over a month since the box fell on her foot, so we’re reasonably sure it’s healed. Also, we’ve seen her climbing the play equipment at Chick-Fil-A and we know that foot can stand a lot of pressure without Annalie showing the least sign of pain. But she’s a stubborn one, our daughter, and she’s hanging on to that memory of pain and her fear of it happening again. I can actually understand that, since she’s got fewer than four years of living under her belt, and not much experience of pain and recovering from pain. And you know, on the off chance that the injury is still healing, I would rather she were cautious with the foot so she doesn’t have problems with it later in life.

She’s been limping and lurching around on her toes this past week, usually hanging on for dear life to our hands or a nearby stationary object. She’s doing it at least once or twice every day, but not enough that I was getting excited about it. It’s almost harder to help her stay upright as she wobbles on her tiptoes than to just carry her around. So I was—yes, you guessed it—happy and surprised yesterday when Annalie walked from the living room to the kitchen and back five or six times in a row! She was walking on her toes, and still wobbling a bit, but she was doing it without any suggestion on my part, and laughing while she was at it.

Annalie walking, sorta from bethany actually on Vimeo.

Today, I was again surprised and happy at Cassie’s birthday party at the base movie theater, where Annalie, Gabby, Annie and Morgan spent much of the film chasing each other up and down the aisle. Annalie still has a definite limp, but her walking is getting closer and closer to normal. We’ll probably have to carry her a bit at the airports tomorrow, but I bet by the time we come back home we’ll be hollering at her to slow down and wait for us. I would not be a bit surprised.

Annalie tip-toeing from bethany actually on Vimeo.

Then she surprised us at dinner this past Sunday by standing up in our restaurant booth to look at the tables on the other side. She stood on her tippytoes, without any prompting on our part, and then grinned and waited for us to notice. I don’t think we cheered as much for her when she took her first baby steps.

Since then she has been willing to “practice” walking only if one of us is holding her hands, and only on her toes, despite the fact that when she’s lying on the floor and isn’t thinking about it she often will bend her knees and plant both her feet flat on the ground. She also will push hard with both of her feet on our hands or legs when we’re tickling her or wrestling around, which we’ve been doing a lot lately in an attempt to get her moving around and in the hopes that she would use her foot without thinking about it and realize it didn’t hurt. Well, she does use that foot all the time when she isn’t thinking about it. Are you noticing a pattern here?

We’re pretty sure that most of Annalie’s reluctance to walk is because she accidentally jumped off a chair a few hours after she injured her foot, and she remembers quite clearly how painful that was. Annalie has a great memory, and a vivid imagination, and she’s extremely sensitive (she scored 20 on this test). When we’re at a birthday party, Annalie covers her ears all through “Happy Birthday to You” in anticipation of the clapping and cheering after the candles are blown out. If we’re reading a book and a character in the book does something naughty—say, eating a cookie even though he was told not to—she whimpers and says, “I’m done with this book!” because anticipating the scolding that will happen five pages later is just too much for her.

I am sympathetic to Annalie’s sensitivity, because I’m that way myself (I score 25 on this test). People used to call me shy when I was little, but really I was often just overwhelmed by the number of people in the room, the noise level, the people looking at me, make them stop looking at me! I don’t come off as shy anymore, and I’ve learned to control my reactions so most people don’t notice them, but I am still sensitive to noise levels and crowds. I can usually tell when a television is on somewhere in the house even though I can’t hear the sound. Many times I have spit out an orange section, grimacing at its bitterness, only to hand the orange off to Troy and watch him enjoy the rest of it.

So when we try to talk to Annalie about walking, and she stiffens and clamps her hands over her ears, I understand that she’s feeling overwhelmed by the emotions evoked by the thought of walking and feeling pain. When we encourage her to try standing on her good foot or to get herself up onto a chair (both of which we know she can do) and she gets upset and cries, I ache for her and am frustrated because I know what she’s feeling but I don’t know how to make it better.

There have been a couple of times her agitation has evolved into full-fledged tantrums (like the x-ray attempt), and we’re never quite sure if we should stand our ground or back down. The other day she lost it over the idea of getting down off a chair by herself. She asked me to help her down, and I said something like, “You can get down by yourself, I know you can! You’ve done it lots of times!” Apparently what she heard was, “I’d like you to stick this red-hot nail through your foot! Then drink this rat poison!” because she burst into tears and curled into a little ball on the chair. I thought if she was scared, it was important for her to just do it, especially since this was something I knew she was capable of doing. So I sat down in another chair and cheered her on, asked if there was something I could do to make it easier for her, offered to leave her alone, sat with her in my lap, prayed with her, talked to her about how she gets a little braver each time she’s scared to do something and does it anyway…you name it, we tried it. Finally after thirty minutes she calmed down and got down off the chair by herself with Troy lightly touching her bad foot so she would remember not to put it on the ground.

Then there was this morning, when I asked Annalie if she wanted to practice walking, and at first she thought that was fine, but it ended up being 45 minutes of her crying and not wanting to put her good foot on the floor. Here’s part of the email I sent Troy after it was all over:

From: Bethany
Date: Jan 23, 2008 10:55 AM
Subject: help
To: Troy

Okay. I just wanted to vent a little bit. I’ll be fine. I probably just need to eat something.

And I did, and then Troy came home for lunch which gave me a bit of a break, and all was well.

Seriously, I’m fine now. That line about venting applies to this blog post, too. I’m not depressed, I can handle my daughter’s tantrums (which I realize are actually few and far between and about something specific), I don’t need anything more than an occasional pat on the back and maybe some coffee and peanut butter cookies to help me along. And when she is walking again, I am sure I’ll say something dumb like, “Wow, it was so much easier when she was stuck sitting on the couch all day!” forgetting what a pain it was to have to carry her every time we walk from the car to Target.

Ugh. This post had a point way back there at the start, but I’ve meandered so much it’s starting to feel like a big mess. I’ll end here, even though I could rant on about this for another thousand words, easy, because I’ve been writing this post in bits and pieces all day and am getting tired of it. I’m kind of amazed I am even hitting ‘publish’ because I am a private person and I don’t usually talk about my frustrations to anyone but my mom or Troy or my closest friends. I guess I feel like you all deserve something for coming here to read time after time, so you’re getting a little bit of trust. Thanks for listening.

You probably know that I am a night owl, but what you might not know about me is that when I am stressed I get insomnia. I’ve had a few sleepless nights since Annalie hurt her foot, and last night was one of them (I didn’t get to sleep till after 6). Troy saw I was a zombie and told me to go back to sleep, that he’d call if he needed me. So when Troy and Annalie got home a couple of hours later, Troy gave me the report.

After they got to the clinic, they tried to get pictures of the injured foot, but due to the smallness and darkness of the room and a clueless x-ray tech, Annalie FREAKED OUT. Troy let another lady who was waiting go first while he talked to Annalie and they practiced what was going to happen in the x-ray room, but when it came down to it Annalie was just too panicked. So they went to see the doctor and she manipulated the foot quite a bit, twisting it this way and that. Troy told the doctor how, in her panic, Annalie hooked both her feet on the door of the x-ray room to keep from being taken inside and hung on with all her might. Annalie even managed a step or two with some of her weight on the injured foot.

The doctor said we certainly weren’t doing any harm to Annalie by letting her baby the foot for a few days; that we should encourage her to try to take some steps as she improves; and that if she still hasn’t walked at all by Monday that we might have to bring her back in and force the issue with x-rays.

But otherwise, the news is good. Thank you all so much for your thoughts and prayers!

Foot update

As you know, Annalie hurt her foot on New Year’s Eve. That evening, we went to our friends’ house for family party. While we were there, Annalie forgot her injury and hopped down off a chair, resulting in pain and tears. She insisted she just wanted to leave, but within five minutes of heading home she was quite cheerful, leading us to wonder if the tears had been caused more by the pain or by the houseful of people looking at her.

Tuesday, Annalie spent the day on the couch with her foot propped on a pillow or at the table with me painting or being carried place to place by Troy. Nothing traumatic happened. Troy and Annalie had some fun with leftover fireworks.

This morning when Annalie got up, I asked her how her foot felt, and she said, “More good!” She wiggled her toes for me, moved her foot around, and even let me massage it gently and put her shoes on to meet friends for breakfast at Chick-Fil-A. At the restaurant all was well until she leaned over a little too far and slipped off the bench, landing on both her feet. I scooped her up and she wailed that she wanted to go “somewhere with a little bit of privacy!” (she IS my daughter) so we gathered up our belongings and left. Within three minutes, Annalie had stopped sniffling and was chattering away. Again, I have to wonder if her distress was caused more by the pain or by the people looking at her. (My mom is shaking her head as she reads this, remembering the countless times I behaved this exact way about people looking at me when I was a kid.)

At dinner tonight Troy asked Annalie about what happened at Chick-Fil-A, and she said, “Well, it hurt, but not as much as it hurt at Kara’s house when I jumped off the chair.” As of bedtime tonight, Annalie still hasn’t wanted to put weight on the injured foot. It’s hard to tell if that’s because she really is in pain, or if she is afraid of the possibility of pain after landing rather hard those two times. We talked to a nurse at our clinic on Monday, and taking into account her advice, my personal experience with a sprained ankle, and common sense, we’ve decided to give it a couple more days before we take her to the doctor.

Whew. That was long. I promise I’ll keep the next parts brief, and throw in lots of photos.

Thank-you notes

First, a thank-you note from me to the lovely Angella of Dutch Blitz:

Dear Angella,

Thank you so much for the Aero bars! I can’t believe that you not only remembered a random comment of mine about liking Aeros, you bought some and mailed them to me. You are generous and thoughtful. My life is richer for having met you, and not only because you sent me candy bars that have not been available in the U.S. since 1992. :-)

Love,
Bethany

Second, Annalie has been using her cool new paint set (thanks, Heather, Conner & Rylee!) to make some notecards for writing thank-you notes. Thank-you notes are probably a bigger deal to me than they should be. I used to write actual letters and send birthday cards to everyone I know, but first email and then having a baby struck near-fatal blows to my letter-writing. Pretty much the only letters I write anymore are thank-you notes, and I’m holding on with a death grip to that habit.

I’ve been having Annalie help me write thank-you notes since she was able to hold a crayon. This is partly because I want her to get into the habit from an early age, partly because it makes the task more fun for me, and partly because it makes the notes more fun for grandparents and others to receive. When she was very small, I’d write the note and she’d scribble on the card. Now, with a lot of encouragement, she dictates a couple of sentences to me and signs her name.

Just to make the note-writing a little more fun this time, I gave Annalie several sheets of cardstock and broke out her new paint set. After the paint had dried, I cut each sheet into four pieces.

And now we have unique notecards that fit neatly into the A-2 envelopes we’d already bought for our Christmas cards. I figure since Annalie isn’t in preschool, these thank-you notes count as arts & crafts, etiquette, and writing practice. Now we’ll go watch some more Zoboomafoo for science.

Crocheted bits

I’ve been making lots of little things lately. Here are some of them. First, this was made with with Ana Paula Rimoli‘s teacup pattern, but I used a slightly bigger hook than the pattern called for and cotton yarn. So it’s more like a coffee mug.

I wanted something smaller that would stand on its own better, so I made up these two as I went along. I’m pretty happy with how they turned out. I’ll probably be making more.

After three cups, I wanted a change. So I made this little guy, whom Annalie named Pucky.

I crocheted him with cotton yarn and stuffed him with a plastic grocery sack cut into several pieces because I didn’t have any polyester stuffing handy. I used one of the free instant crochetification patterns from the wonderful Roman Sock.

I don’t know why Brie’s Etsy shop isn’t more well-known, because her crocheted creatures are totally adorable. Look at this giraffe, and these meerkats, and this polar bear! They’re not just crocheted softies, they are ART!

And if that doesn’t make her awesome enough, she just opened the Etsy shop to get rid of some of the creatures who were crowding her bookshelves. Many of the patterns are available on her blog for free!

*I think I failed miserably. Maybe I should have broken this up into three posts.

Annalie pulled a heavy box down onto her leg and foot this morning. Troy was helping me finish up a batch of cookies for a party we’re going to tonight when we heard a series of bangs and crashes behind us. Before either of us could move Annalie had fallen back into our kitchen chairs and table, sending the lightweight pieces skidding, and the large flat box holding the pieces of a bookcase was down on top of her right leg. Aack!

We both ran over to scoop her up and comfort her. She was crying, but thankfully she was able to wiggle her toes and move her foot. We ran cold water over her foot and leg in the bathroom sink (Annalie protesting the whole time, “That’s enough, that’s enough!”) and had her take Motrin to help with the swelling and the pain. At first she kept saying she wanted to go to bed, which I could understand because my inclination when I am in pain is to go hole up by myself too. But we wanted to keep an eye on her, so we convinced her to snuggle on the couch with Troy and turned the TV to Discovery Kids. She’d watch for a few minutes in silence, then remember the pain and cry a little. Poor baby.

It’s been a couple of hours now, and Annalie says her foot is feeling “more good” already. I’m thinking that after her nap she might get up and walk on that foot before she remembers that she hurt it. I hope that’s what happens. She also told us she was hungry, which is a good sign, no? She’s eating leftover aebleskiver as I type this.

A little while after all this happened and we were all sitting here on the couch, Troy said, “You know what the kicker is? As I was helping you with those cookies, I was thinking about how when I was done with that, I was gonna break down those boxes and take the pieces of the bookcase upstairs to the office, so they would be up there when we were ready to put it together in Annalie’s room.”

At least Annalie IS feeling better.

We hope she continues improving, so we’re able to go to the family New Year’s party at our friends Jill & Andy’s house tonight. There, we’ll chat with friends while we stuff our faces with delicious appetizers and the kids play. We’ll break out noisemakers and do the countdown at 7pm (midnight Greenwich Mean Time). Then we can all take our kids home and put them to bed at a reasonable hour. Troy and I will be staying up to see in the New Year with root beer floats and a classic movie we’ve never seen before, which has been our tradition since we got married. This year I think we’ll watch To Kill a Mockingbird, if Netflix delivers it today. If not, we’ll watch whatever we can find at Blockbuster.

Happy New Year, everyone! Whatever you’re doing tonight, have fun and be safe. I hope 2008 is the year you get pregnant, find that dream job, perfect your homemade spaghetti sauce, run the 5K, learn to knit, reconnect with old friends, or whatever it is your heart desires.