On High Alert

I thought our house was childproof for the most part. Now, I'm pretty sure that it isn't even close. What made me change my mind? How about watching Ada play with a bottle of my prenatal vitamins from the top of my dresser and get them open in a matter of seconds. We quickly took them away from her but I was startled by Rick's comment that that's the second time she had opened the bottle. Okay. Then why is is still playing with it and how can we make it less accessible?

I was reminded of the vitamin incident the next day when doing laundry. While loading clothes into the machine, a prenatal vitamin dropped out of the pile where she had removed the lid of the bottle the previous night. Not a good sign, but a good sign at the same time since that means she didn't swallow it.

We try to keep a close eye on her, but it isn't easy and it doesn't take long for her to get into things to the point where they are dangerous. And we are so much more distracted by the new baby that it leaves her a wider window of time to get into trouble.

For instance, just this week I was preparing the toppings for a pizza for dinner. Ada was at the computer in the kitchen watching cartoons. Iain was in his bouncy chair as I chopped, oiled and shredded toppings. Iain decided he wanted to be fussy so I picked him up for a cuddle and not a minute later I look over to check on Ada --three feet away from me mind you -- and she is covered in clear nail polish. Yes, she did paint her toes. But she also painted her shin, thigh, wrist, her chin and a little bit of the computer chair. She saw her window of opportunity and took it. Needless to say, dinner went on hold while I set Iain back down so I could grab the nail polish remover and a cotton ball. Imagine Rick's surprise five minutes later when he comes home to Ada running toward him yelling "Daddy, Daddy" as she always does and me saying, "Don't let her touch you! She's covered in nail polish and remover." Once he had five seconds to take off his shoes, I quickly put him in charge of getting her into the tub and removing the rest of the polish so I could again calm a screaming Iain and get dinner into the oven.

Needless to say, I think there is some truth to the idea that parents need to have eyes in the back of their heads...and be able to look around corners, through walls, and have internal GPS systems to monitor their child's whereabouts at all times. Until I am issued all of those superpowers, I think I'm just going to have to try to be less distracted and do a better job of locking up, removing, and storing anything that could be remotely dangerous on higher ground. But I know that Ada is too smart for her own good and will just pull up a chair to reach things or climb up the shelves to obtain the elusive "no no" items. There is only so much a parent can do.

Moral of the story: Be prepared to be even more vigilant once you have a second child as your first child might be more rebellious, and will have larger windows of time to do much more damage.

Rut-ro, Time to Toddler Proof

As Scooby Do likes to say... Rut-ro.

In a moment of brainlessness, I left a bottle of Hydrogen Peroxide on the dining room table yesterday and Ada found it this morning. She didn't do anything with it, thank goodness, and Rick caught her sitting in front of it, holding the lid. But that was too close for comfort. I must be much more careful with my toxic household items, even if I am a pregnant scatterbrain with a big blister on my foot. No excuses.

Potentially worse than getting into poisons lying around, today she climbed onto the box our new tent is in, which is currently sitting on the kitchen floor awaiting transport to the basement storage unit. She quickly learned that standing on the box gets her better access to the countertop where she can play with things that are normally out of reach. I moved the glass jars out of her way thinking they would be the most dangerous thing for her to get into in case she dropped them and caused a mess everywhere. As I was at the sink draining her peas and carrots for dinner, I noticed she had a six-inch steak knife in her hand and was waving it at the glass jars I had secured in a basket on the countertop. "Rut-ro" didn't quite cover just how quickly I went from calm to "Holy shit. Give that to me right now." I quickly re-located the knife block to the higher countertop, faced them sideways instead of outward, and slid them as far back from the edge as possible.

Turns out, our baby proofing has officially expired and we now need to upgrade to full on toddler proofing.

She can now open closets, get into cabinets, and open bottles and doors. Medicines with "childproof" caps don't seem as childproof these days. I used to be able to zip up the nail polish bags and feel pretty good that I wouldn't have red and pink stripes on the floors. Now, I think I need to zip them up and put them on shelves above four feet high in the closet. And I finally have a reason to be thankful for the double vestibule doors since she can't quite open them yet do to their weight. I'm also thankful that they provide two more obstacles to prevent her from escaping our house.

To make life even more exciting, she has starting throwing things into the garbage. Mostly things I ask her to throw away or recycle, but I'm wondering where the two sets of baby nail clippers we had have disappeared to. And the fact that she flushed the toilet three times in a row yesterday when I was standing right next to her made me worry that we will soon be getting really friendly with our plunger. Not to mention how I quickly had to stop Rick from showing her that he could use toilet paper as a tissue and then flush it instead of throwing it away since I don't think she'll be able to ascertain when it is toilet paper and when it is a wet wipe or tissue or a paper towel or an actual towel and how toilet paper is the only one of those that is truly "flushable". Her new interest in the potty is great...until you start to think about all of the things she could possibly flush and the repercussions of those flushing actions.

And so I say, Rut-ro. Here we go.

Moral of the story: It is never too early to develop safe habits when you have children. Bad habits are hard to break so get into the childproofing mentality from day one and you'll be glad you did.

Weird, Funny, Annoying and Disgusting

Weird, funny, annoying and disgusting things Ada has done this week:

Disgusting: I tossed the leftover frosting from a chocolate cake I had eaten the night before into our garbage can and used the side of the can to scrape off the fork. All was fine until Ada threw something away, saw the frosting and decided to have some--from the side of the garbage bag. I freaked out and quickly scrubbed her down and took the garbage out. Yuck.

Funny: On our walk home from day care on Thursday, we got to the corner by our house when Ada started screaming and pointing across the street. She's in a pointing phase now to communicate what she wants. And a bossy phase, but I digress. I waited for the street light to change and took her across the street only to have her walk up to the door of the ice cream shop and demand that I take her inside for a scoop. She must have been channeling a craving from BB in the belly because we all walked away happy. Oddly enough, we hadn't been to the ice cream shop in months due to my heartburn and crazy diet.

Weird: While on a walk yesterday, Ada picked up a small stick to carry. It wore out from her bending and swinging it so we quickly found another, more interesting stick with a good place to hold on to and several arching branches. She enjoyed it all the way around the block until we met up with a dog, I think he was a boxer, and he traded Ada a few kisses for the stick -- and then he devoured it. She found one final stick in front of our house and decided to bring it inside, and put it in her mouth just like the dog did. I washed it off, and her off, and now we have a pet stick.

Annoying: At nap time yesterday, I missed her "sleepy window" in order to feed her lunch. I should have just put her down and let her eat later but hindsight is 20/20. She refused to nap and when I thought she would just play quietly in her room, I laid down on the couch for a mini siesta myself. Twenty minutes later I awoke to her pink unicorn rocking horse on a repeat loop from hell "I'm a magical unicorn, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a magical unicorn..." as she kept pushing the button over and over and over, never letting it cycle through the whole song. I reacted like a grumpy bear by storming into her room, grabbing the unicorn by the handle at the side of its head and swinging it out of her room and into the hallway. GRRR. Then I gave up and let her lay on the couch with me until I woke up more properly five minutes later.

Weird: When I put her down for bed the other night, she refused to get into her toddler bed and insisted upon sleeping on the floor. She pulled down her pillow and blanket, grabbed her stuffed animals and laid down. At that point, I was too exhausted to care. I did warn Rick when he went in to get her the next morning not to step on her and sure enough, she was still lying on the floor in the middle of the room.

Funny: We had friends over for a BBQ last weekend and I cleaned the long mirror in our bedroom of all of the handprints at Ada's height. I didn't bother to clean the upper half of the mirror since I was cutting corners and knew it wasn't that dirty--after all, we don't eat a banana and then go dance in front of the mirror with sticky hands. When I looked at the mirror from an angle the next day, it was clear to see that I hadn't wiped the top down as it had a fine layer of dust adhered to the glass. Oops. At least we can see our legs and shoes clearly when we get dressed in the mornings.

Annoying: Trying to keep Ada from ruining things around the house is no easy task. Last week she was playing with the fireplace tools and I was fine with her using the broom tool since it was still new and had never been used. Then she moved on to the log grabber and scooted it across the cream part of the rug, revealing to me that it had indeed been used and was covered in black soot. That game ended fast and she is now banned from all touching of anything fireplace related. At least the soot came out with a little elbow grease and upholstery cleaner.

More Annoying: I'm a hawk about her and crayons as I've heard several horror stories of crayons and walls and all other surfaces really. She got crayon on her Easter dress and Grandma Ba miraculously got it all out. This time, she had the white crayon in hand and stroked it on the brown part of the rug before I could stop her (what are the odds?). I'll get around to cleaning that up this weekend hopefully.

Weird: She likes to taste the nuts in a trail mix and licks the ones she doesn't like, then leaves them on the floor or the table for you to throw away later. She also likes to dip french fries in ketchup or a sauce and then licks the sauce off and leaves the french fry on your plate. She's still a work in progress.

More Weird: Last night at dinner she poured salt onto the table from the shaker and then licked the table.

Disgusting: With her cough induced asthma, she's been throwing up a lot lately. That itself is gross. But the smell it leaves in your car even after you scrub the car seat is even worse.

Funny: In an attempt to make a cheese sauce for dinner to accompany a baked potato and steamed broccoli, I had a stick of butter in its wrapper sitting out on the counter. Ada grabbed it and took a bite out of it, through the packaging. I later found the chunk she spit it out lying on the floor. At least she didn't eat it.
Moral of the story: Each day that goes by with a child brings more surprises than you could ever imagine.

Allergies at 2?

As parents, we worry about dietary allergies and what we are exposing our children to that could cause an alarming reaction and a scary trip to the emergency room. I’ve never really worried with Ada since neither Rick nor I have a history of allergies. I’m aware of the dangers and know to get her to the ER. I’ve heard stories of peanut allergies mostly. But it never really occurred to me that Ada might have seasonal allergies like Rick. We all had a bad cold during the Winter/Spring season transition, or I assumed it was a cold. Then Rick realized it was allergy season and our doctor suggested Zyrtec. Tree pollen has been bad all month so that could be it. Combined with a four day vacation at Grandma and Grandpas’ houses with multiple dogs and cats, makes me seriously suspect allergies as the cause.

In talking to friends about Ada’s symptoms – coughing so much she throws up clear phlegm or her latest meal, often at night or first thing in the morning, and now involving tons of snot that I’d classify as yellowish and disgusting—I’ve heard that some parents are having success with Zyrtec but it takes a few days to kick in so you have to keep them on it for awhile. Another recommendation was the addition of probiotics (like those found in Activa Yogurt) to her diet, which worked for a friend of a friend. And still another mom suggested getting children allergy tested once they are over two since that's when it is more accurate. I’m not excited about doing that until we know the Zyrtec doesn’t help and if we haven’t had any luck figuring out the causes just by observing her and taking note of what possible triggers may be.

Rick, on the other hand, is all for the allergy testing. Clearly he has never been tested, isn’t totally clear on what it entails and how painful it can be, and hasn't heard the horror stories. Or he just considers the benefits of knowing what she's allergic to more important than that trauma it will put her through. I had a friend who was tested in college and learned that she was allergic to 90% of the allergens she was tested for. I remember her showing me the red welts covering her entire back afterwards all labeled with their corresponding allergens. She was miserable for hours after the skin test. How do you explain that experience to a two-year-old? That’s where I draw the line. If Rick wants to know what the specific allergens are and the doctor recommends Ada should be tested, that’s fine. But I won’t be around when they do it unless they prove to me that it needs to be done.

In talking with other moms of kids with allergies, I am more thankful that Ada hasn’t had any food allergies so far. And I’m planning to stock up on Benedryl allergy strips to put in the car, house, diaper bag, and my purse so that I’m ready to at least buy her, or another child whom I happen to be around, enough time to get to the ER for treatment should they have a bad reaction. I’ve heard they are a lifesaver, literally. Not that I want to live in constant fear of having a kid react to an allergen on my watch, but it would give me more piece of mind since I don't cary EPI pens around in my back pocket.

Moral of the story: Watch for allergic reactions in your own children, be cautions when watching other children, and be prepared to act quickly should an allergy appear. That's the best you can do.

House Go Boom!

How do you explain to a two-year-old that they are NOT to touch the knobs on the front of the stove due to the threat of a gas leak that could cause the house to explode? I tried today but don't think Ada really understood. This all came just minutes before we left the house for day care and I just happened to be standing at the stove packing my lunch when I smelled gas and noticed the right back burner knob was turned on to low with no flame. Luckily I saw it, turned it off and opened the back door for a few minutes to air out the house before we had to leave. I also left the bathroom window cracked open an inch for the day to air things out, just in case.

Once I got to work, I realized just how dangerous her little knob turning incident was when my neighbor Kelly called to tell me that she and two other neighbors smelled gas in the hallway this morning. I quickly fessed up via email to calm all of my neighbors' fears -- or ignite them knowing that they have a two-year-old pyro living in their building. I did let them know to always check my stove first if they smell it in the future and I'm willing to give them all a set of keys to our unit, if that helps at all. Yikes!

I tend to think I'm good about keeping the knobs off when we aren't cooking, but in my exhaustion following my 6 hour grocery shopping and cooking marathon on Monday, I must have forgotten to remove the knobs. Talk about a lucky break. And now I want to just punch the person who designed my stove in the face and tell him or her and their design team that they are a bunch of idiots. I'm just glad I'm not responsible for buying the stove new because then I'd just have myself to blame.

Moral of the story: Don't buy a stove with ignitor knobs that can be easily turned on by a child. Invest in safety features to prevent them from accidentally being turned on. And be sure to check them often, and first whenever you smell gas... or just get an electric stove.

Death of the Home Phone

We finally did it.

We cancelled our home phone service. I've had a home phone my entire life. Back in the day... before cell phones existed... when we had to walk to school uphill both ways, barefoot in the snow... or better yet, when pay phones still existed and took quarters...

The only real reason we had a "land line" was in case of emergencies. It was worth a couple of dollars a month for that "peace of mind", knowing that I could always try to reach whoever was here watching Ada (typically Rick) if their (his) cell phone died or the ringer was turned off by mistake. It was nice to know that they could always make an emergency call if they needed to. And it was convenient when our cell phone coverage in our house was so bad I'd drop 90% of my calls (that's why I don't have AT&T as my cell phone service provider).

Recently, I noticed that our land line phone bill was creeping up a lot higher than I originally thought. Ten dollars a month for that emergency access line was a good deal to me. But when I looked at the actual breakdown of our bill, I learned that it was really costing us $25 a month. And about $18 of that was taxes. We had the most basic, bare bones service possible and never even used the phone (except for that one month our nanny made a bunch of long distance calls and ran up the bill...) So it was time for it to go.

I did some research and learned that for $10 less each month, I could double my DSL Internet speed and drop my home phone. Great! What a deal! After all, I've been getting a lot of wrong numbers, solicitations, surveys, and calls that I just didn't want--all at really inconvenient times, like during naps... mine and Ada's both.

All would be fine in the world had I not been connected with a series of poorly trained customer service staff at AT&T. To make a VERY LONG story short, my phone was cut off a week ago Tuesday and I just now got my Internet connection back at 8 pm on Monday night. It's a VERY SORE subject at my house right now so avoid mentioning AT&T around me for the next twenty years or so -- unless you're trying to push me into labor. At least wait until I get to 38 weeks, please.

All of this drama for what? Well, in theory, we'll save $120/year and a bit of my sanity since I won't be woken up by wrong numbers and telemarketers anymore -- until they get ahold of my cell phone number anyway. The only call I will miss is Beverly from the Doctoress' office who calls the day before to remind us of our appointments. I'll have to remember to give her my cell, or just remember the appointments myself.

And now that the Internet is FINALLY up and running... (after I've spent 2.5 hours of my life on my (Sprint) cell phone with tech services, most of that on hold)... I will say I already missed my land line for about 5 minutes today when I couldn't remember where I put my cell phone down and I realized, I can no longer used the land line to call my cell phone to help locate it. And I can't call Rick to call my cell phone to locate it, because I can't find my cell phone to call him with and I no longer have a land line. So I just can't misplace my phone anymore. Talk about being thrown into new levels of responsibility I never knew existed.

Moral of the story: Times change, technology changes, but AT&T customer services will always be atrocious.

A day of weird moments

Yesterday contained a few weird moments. That's the best way for me to describe it. See for yourselves.

First off, we started the day with brunch and learned that two of our most awesome friends are expecting their first child this year. Yeah! I couldn't be more excited as they are going to be AWESOME parents! Totally took me by surprise.

At brunch, we tried a new place that just happens to be a big deal in Chicago. Lou Mitchell's on Jackson. You walk in and get a powdered covered donut from the hostess. Then you get a mini halloween-size box of milk duds when you are seated. You order and they bring you a prune and an orange wedge in a small bowl. Food comes and you're happy. Then they offer you a tiny cup of ice cream to send you off on your day with a smile. Ada got crayons to play with of course. The weird part was... as we go to pay with our credit card, we learned it was cash only. Not a big deal, just another weird shocker since this is a large restaurant that is busy and doesn't deal with credit cards. They save on the credit card fees, and make a killing on the ATM fee commissions they must be getting from the ATM by the door. But they can do that, because the food is good, the service is fast, it's a friendly atmosphere, and you get tons of fun goodies. All surprising in a good way.

Then, our desktop computer hasn't been loading correctly so I've been getting the "Windows death screen" as I call it. You know the one where the computer starts up and just stays on the start up screen. The little load bar keeps going and going, and then it stops to fake you out and make you think it's going to continue to start up the computer, but it doesn't. This annoyed me so much that I have been nagging Rick for the past three days to fix it as I was desperate to get it back up and running. I really depend on this thing as it turns out.

In an act of brilliance, Rick was able to fix it yesterday and all is now well with the world. Ah...

Then last night, as we were playing a new board game I'm kind of obsessed with called Settlers of Catan, a bowl that my friend Anne passed down to me about 2 or 3 weeks ago, just jumped off the counter in the kitchen, taking another bowl with it, and one of them shattered all over the kitchen floor. I haven't found a home in the kitchen for this set of 5, now 4, bowls and made the mistake of stacking them on a pile of produce still in their plastic bags from the store and over time, or maybe the spin cycle of the laundry machine on the other side of the wall, they became dislodged and plunged to the floor. Ada really wanted to go walk all over the mess while barefoot but we, mean and evil parents that we are, forbid her from walking in the kitchen. So mean...

As the day is nearing its end, we decide that maybe we are hungry since it's 8:45 and we had brunch at 10ish, then lunch at 3ish, and maybe it was time to eat something. I grabbed a bag of pretzels and hummus to tide us over until we could order something and upon opening the bag I discovered, what is that?, my little one-inch-tall karate man figurine that used to sit on the computer desk. As I'm laughing hysterically, my friend Bob looks at me like I'm a nut. Yes, I am a nut... But I'm laughing because Ada stuck the little karate guy into the pretzel bag last week when we were having pretzels and hummus for a snack on the couch. She cracks me up!

Still hungry at 9:30, Rick calls our good ol' standby for last minute dinner, Ceasars. It's a block away and the food is always ready in ten minutes or less. We can always count on Ceasars to save us, until 10pm when they close the kitchen. Rick calls and no one answers. He calls again, no answer. It's so close that he decides to just run over and order and bring it back. Thirty seconds after he leaves, my phone rings. Ceasars is closed on Sundays. Duh. We're going to just have to go to bed hungry. What's weird about that? We've lived here for over three years now and I can think of only two other instances where we've ordered on a Sunday and they've been closed. I think they are open on Sundays in the summer. Just not winter. Oh well.

Moral of the story: Life is totally unpredictable. Just roll with it.

Another reason to be thankful for little girls...

At dinner last week, my friend Ted was talking about this article he read. It's comparing football to dogfighting and ran in the New Yorker. There is a very similar article about concussions and brain injuries to football players and boxers in this one from 60 Minutes.

To summarize both articles in a nutshell, when you hit your head repeatedly, as football players and boxers tend to due, it can cause brain damage later on in life as the cells you injure degenerate over time. Eventually it looks like these guys have dementia or Alzheimer's, when in reality they have, according to the 60 minutes article, a "devastating, degenerative brain disease, called chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE. It was first seen in boxers and can only be diagnosed after death, when the brain is dissected."

Translation? While our football players make a ton of money and are famous for the few years that they play, they end up having major brain problems at extremely young ages due to all the trauma their heads have been through.

So why am I mentioning this?

As a mother, my first thought when I read this was "Thank goodness I have a girl. How would I tell my son I don't want him to play football? Maybe Rick can gently nudge him toward soccer instead." And that reminded me of my now brother-in-law back in high school when his mom banned him from heading the soccer ball during practice or games because he had received too many concussions on the field and she was worried about his head. Boy was she ever validated to read these articles.

It's not that I plan to never let my kids play football or head the soccer ball or box, but more importantly, I want them to understand the long-term dangers of head injuries and the type of sacrifice these players are making for their short-term successes and fame. And the seriousness of a concussion so they don't get right back up and play some more.

Moral of the story: Play smart. Play safe. And know the long-term risks before it's too late.

Such a bad mom...?

From over here, it looks like you might be a bad mother.

Sometimes I feel like that's what other people are thinking of me. I don't believe it's true, but women can be very judgemental and critical, and well, sometimes I just wonder if they are being critical of my parenting style.

Today at the park was a great example--especially following Ada's fall down the back steps yesterday (my neighbor probably thought we were awful to let her stand on the stairs on her own. Gasp, oh the horror!) We're at the park--a tiny neighborhood park on Belmont that isn't much bigger than the size of a standard house lot so maybe 30 feet wide by 120 deep. There are over 20 kids and their moms or dads or nannies and their strollers. It's a lot to take in and I'm clearly over stimulated. Moms on cell phones. Kids eating snacks. Toys being borrowed, stolen, and fought over. Pretty close to full-on chaos.

We've been at the park for about 15 minutes. I'm yawning and daydreaming when all of a sudden I hear a mom squeal and look to see that Ada has run under a swing and got kicked in the face by the woman's child. Everybody is fine. One minute of screaming and all is right with the world. Too bad Obama doesn't have it that good. Then about ten minutes later she ran straight into a railing at forehead height for the ramp up to the jungle gym. The same mothers saw her do both. And they saw me watch her do both, or watch me not watch her in the first case.

To that I just say "So what?" This is a big city. When am I going to see those moms again?

Moral of the story: Don't be too quick to judge other moms, and don't worry if they are quick to judge you. Focus your energy on being a good mom.

Six steps at a time...

Ada learned this weekend that the quickest way to the bottom of the steps on our back porch is to fall down them. She's fine, amazingly. She really only feel down about seven steps but that was enough to do a complete head-over-feet roll and bend her neck back in a way that creeped both of us out.

Rick and I watched the whole thing happen, with our neighbor standing next to me, and couldn't do anything about it. I was sitting at the top of the stairs telling a story about how I thought I just mailed my credit card to my doctor's office with a bill I was paying (I found it later on the kitchen counter) and he was at the bottom landing with his arms full of potting materials as it was repot-the-houseplants day for us. She fell so fast and time went into a slow motion blur. It was all so surreal. Our neighbor was totally freaked out and worried about her. I knew she was just fine and stayed calm. Rick picked her up and cuddled her. Five minutes later it was all forgotten... minus the tiny scrap on her nose.

This isn't her first trip down the stairs, but it is her longest. She's wiped out a few times on the front steps and gone down like a ragdoll. That's partly why I don't get freaked out when something like this happens. She's built to be floppy at this age... not that I don't encourage parents to watch their children closely around stairs, because I do. She's not indestructible by any means. But I think she's built to bounce. She falls down at least ten times a day. I can't say I'd be in good shape if I fell even twice a day. I also believe in giving kids room to learn on their own and make their own mistakes. My brother and I both tumbled down the stairs as kids. (I don't think there is any lasting damage but others may disagree.) It seems to be a right of passage. Just something that happens.

Moral of the story: Try not to freak out too soon when your child falls. Chances are that they are going to be just fine and their injures are fixable. And only make them wear a helmet in moderation (ie. bikes, skateboards, scooters, etc., not going downstairs).

My Little Social Butterfly

My mom's a realtor.
I'm in business development.
We're social people.

It should come as no surprise that Ada is a VERY friendly child.

It's not just kids in the parks that she instantly befriends. Those actually take a little bit more time.

It's adults. A man eating along in a local Mediterranean restaurant soon finds Ada helping him review the menu while suggesting dinner entrees. Another set of local restaurant patrons are convinced that Ada is so parched she can't make it a block home with me. They offer her a drink of water from the orange glass, and then the green glass, and then the orange glass again. After five minutes of this game, I'm tired of holding my take-out bag and call it quits. But that doesn't help since she befriends someone outside on the sidewalk. Then we see two people we know on the way home and when I finally turn the keys in the front door, my food is cold.

The other day we went to grab a few things at CVS and stop by to see Kelly from upstairs since she's the pharmacy manager at the store down the street. We're standing in the aisles of CVS when Ada starts starring at a man shopping for shaving products. She starts walking back and forth in front of him just daring him to look at her. After about two minutes, he finally breaks down and makes eye contact. Then she does her little Happy Feet dance and starts waving her arms up and down out of sheer joy. A way to say, "Look Mom, another friend!" We made friends with another three patrons before checking out of CVS that day.

And just last week was the biggie. While walking with Ada to run some errands, we first saw one of the street cleaners tightening his belt in a store doorway as we walked by. Ada stopped me and went over to shake his hand and smile. He played along and smiled back. Then it was someone in front of Alison's apartment, a nice man with a rescue dog. Ada was nice to the dog and we had a little conversation with the man. Then we stopped at the drycleaner where she made her own little dance party to the entertainment of all the employees and patrons alike. Then it was off to Express for a sale. She somehow convinced our sales assistant to pick her up and give her a hug. Then she got the three Asian ladies in the store to coo over her and dance with her and pat her cheeks. Then we went up to another store and she got those ladies talking to her. When we exited the elevator our Asian friends were passing by and stopped for another tickle and a smile. And then it was back home for a nap. All that socializing is exhausting. Now she must know how a politician feels. And that was all before noon.

Some kids are shy. They couldn't be any farther on the social scale than from Ada. I don't have to worry about her fitting in anywhere, but I do have to worry about her with strangers since she makes everybody her best friend.

Moral of the story: If you want to get something done quickly, shy kids might be a blessing. If you have an Ada, just be sure to allow for more social time as you go to get things done.

My first heart attack, of what I assume to be many

This morning, as I was making blueberry pancakes for breakfast and Rick was getting ready for work, Ada gave me a mini-heart attack(if there is such a thing as a heart attack being "mini"). I seriously think my heart stopped beating for a moment or two.

Here I am, la la la, just woke up. Still in my pajamas I'm measuring out the milk and cracking an egg when Ada comes around the corner from the bedroom where Rick is getting dressed. All is well with the world. Then she drops something small and it tumbles across the kitchen floor and her tiny little fingers are going after it, trying to stop it and grab it.

Then my world goes into slow motion...

"What's that she's got?" I think to myself.

"Looks like a carrot chunk."

"NO! It's one of the generic Advil pills I spilled all over the floor three days ago. Grab it now!"

I quickly and loudly scare the living daylights out of Ada and Rick as I yell probably one of the sharpest "NO!"s I've ever said to Ada as I swooped down to grab the pill.

Then I stand still and brace myself on the counter for a few breaths to calm myself down as Rick is staring at me and Ada is screaming wildly as if she's just murdered the neighbor's cat or something.

I look at Rick. "It's one of the pills I spilled the other day."

"Good catch." He says as he goes to get a stuffed animal to cheer Ada up since she's still screaming for fear that whatever she has done is quite possibly the worst thing in the world.

I wish there was a way to tell if you've picked up every last tiny little part of something when you spill it. Like a shattered glass, or an economy size bottle of medicine. I swear I checked the area really well after spilling them but obviously, I missed one. Lucky for me, I caught it before she got to eat it. And damn the makers of these bottles for not inventing a spill proof bottle already for klutzes like myself, and for making the outsides candy coated so they taste good going down. Can't they have some sort of bottle that only shakes out one pill at a time? Then you wouldn't have to touch five pills everytime you needed one or two. Can somebody invent that please?

I count my lucky stars that I caught her before she ate it. Hopefully one Advil wouldn't do too much damage but I'm of the belief that I'd rather not have to find out.

Moral of the story: Always be vigilant around your children and be thankful and praise them profusely when they listen and do as they are told. Amen for that.

Child Safety Locks

Beware that not all safety locks really work... either that or I gave birth to Houdini reincarnated...

Luckily, this cabinet just holds pots and pans and we really just put the lock on it because we have it and it can help limit the messes Ada makes around the house. She's become quite the master of removing these and I know they aren't the best lock for the job. We have better locks on the cabinet doors for under the sink and have relocated toxic materials to higher ground.

Moral of the story: Don't be lulled into a false sense of security with these things. They aren't all that secure and can't be held responsible for the silly things your toddler might get into.