Hug Twice

I am not generally a nail biter.  Sometimes one gets too long and annoys me, and if I can’t find a clipper I might bite it off, but I don’t bite them out of habit or nervousness.  Yes, I am so not a lady.  Long nails annoy me anyway. 

However, I have come to determine that nail biting is actually a trait that can develop at a early age.  My son - he bites his toenails.  Yes, his toenails.  I find it disgusting and kind of odd all at the same time, and i stop him whenever I see him doing it.  If I ask him why he either doesn’t answer or tells me that it is fun.  Fun.  Heh.

And this week I realized my daughter has a biting habit of her own.  She bites her fingernails.  And in fact, it kind of scares me.   There is nothing “nibbling” about it.   She gets a piece of fingernail between her teeth and then she rips her finger away from her mouth as hard and fast as she can.  Ow.

But she loves it.  I have no idea why.  She will lie in her crib, happily munching, I mean yanking, off pieces of her fingernails.  Eeek.  She’s only 20 months old.

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This took place last week - I wouldn’t be torturing my sick child in such a way.  Not that it is truly torture of course, but she kind of acts like it is sometimes. 

Alexa has generally short and somewhat curly hair.  At one point I thought that they were baby curls and they were going away, but they seem to be here for good, or at least, for the moment.  The curly is mostly in the back and sides, and the front is very straight.

I have not yet cut her hair.  At all.  Not even a trim.  Honestly, I don’t want to.  I want to grow out her hair and I am not a fan of bangs.  When she was smaller, this wasn’t an issue - I would put headbands in her hair that held back the front longer section and everything was fine.  But then Alexa started to assert her hair independence.  As soon as a headband went into her hair, she’d pull it down over her face and around her neck.  this made me extremely nervous, so i stopped putting headbands on her head, and tried other means of pulling her hair back.  I tried ties and barretts, both of which she would immediately pull out and then try to eat.  That wasn’t acceptable either, so for a while, I just let her hair hang over her face and pushed it back when I could.  She didn’t seem to care at all, but I did.  I didn’t like her hair over her face.

And then I was given bigger barretts with bows attached that a friend had made originally for her daughter.  I am not crafty in that way, so I hadn’t invented anything for myself.  And these were big enough that she couldn’t eat them, but tight enough that they wouldn’t just fall out.  And cute!  Very very cute.

But of course, as soon as I put one in, as expected, Alexa pulled it out, chewed on it for a minute, and threw it on the floor.  But I will not be deterred!  Every day, I have been putting them in her hair.  And every day, she pulls them out and throws them on the floor.  Actually, sometimes she just hands it back to me and giggles. A game, it is, and a mighty fun game - to her.

I have had some small victories - once at CJ’s soccer practice, I got one into her hair without noticing and it stayed there for almost an hour.  Until her hand hit against it by chance and she realized what had been done.  She tried to throw that one into the parking lot.  And once I got one into her hair while she was trying to watch TV.  But that one she noticed after about 5 minutes and threw behind the couch.

I rescued it though.  And I will not give up!  Once she’s feeling better, the bow wars will continue.  And someday, Alexa’s hair will not cover her face without me cutting it off first.

I think.

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Sunday night, Alexa developed a fever of 102 degrees F.  It came down with medicine, but kept returning, and, fearing an ear infection, I took her in to see the doctor yesterday.  CJ got a sticker there for it being his birthday so he didn’t even mind too much.  She doesn’t have an ear infection, in fact, she doesn’t really have anything noticably abnormal other than the fever.  And being cranky.  Which, actually, is not really that abnormal, especially since she’s been teething lately.

I find it hard to concentrate on anything or get anything done when one of my kids are sick.  i think this is a fairly normal reaction by a parent, especially when the child is small and can’t communicate their symptoms very effectively, but I also always feel like I am either under- or overreacting at the same time.  Christmas 2006, my cousin (who was barely 5 at the time) went into a coma and ultimately died from an undiagnosed case of Addison’s disease.  Ever since then, I’ve found myself getting very over-anxious any time my children are sick.  Especially when there isn’t a specific cause one can point at and hold on to and say “Hey, this is what is going on.”  A high fever isn’t even a general symptom of Addison’s disease, yet I find myself in the back of my mind nervous that this is the beginning of something huge.

Which it isn’t.  My more rational side knows that.  But I haven’t figured out quite yet how to let go of the anxiety.  I promise, I am not generally a crazed lunatic who worries over every single sniffle and agonizes over every last thing that happens. Although, maybe I am now.  I try not to show it though. 

I wish there was a definitive test for the disease but there isn’t really, just testing adrenal gland function.  Which I think I am going to have to have done on both kids in the near future for my own peace of mind.  Although that won’t be the end - I’d have to keep having it tested every so often.  I think.

Tomorrow I shall have to write about something silly or funny or generally light-hearted, all this deep thinking is messing with my head. 

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I can’t believe that my first born is four years old today.  I remember being pregnant with him like it was just a few months ago.

It has been an amazing four years and it gets more interesting every day.  Happy Birthday CJ!

We all enjoyed cake yesterday and M came over for it as well.  We’ll see how things progress from here, it seems like M is still annoyed by CJ but maybe in just a typical four year old “we don’t share well” kind of way.

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I decided to keep CJ away from M for a few days.  Well, not actively away, but not let CJ go knock on their door and ask him to play.  But CJ doesn’t understand, and we live on a cul de sac, so it is hard not to go by M’s house at all since that is where we play.  So I have to basically make CJ not go near their house, even though we walk right by it.

I don’t know how to feel - if I should try to interfere or if I should just let CJ do whatever and see what happens, or what.  Argh.  This feels complicated.   I never thought I would feel so involved in all of this.

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