a few weeks ago (okay, maybe it was a month and some), my charming cousin chris sent me a video of his brand new son dax.  little toes and fingers, big eyes, all things babywonderful.  the video of dax was such a nice surprise.  he’s the most recent addition to our extended family and one of the newest humans i know.  and he’s so tiny.  after a few years of toddler-hood, i forget how small babies start off as. and even though ella will soon turn four, i tend to still have a slightly skewed version of her in my head.

i was reminded of this when i was shoe shopping recently.  my task was a simple one:  find a new pair of tennis shoes for ella.  ones, this time, without lights or obnoxious animated princesses.  finding such a shoe is actually a little harder than it may seem.  there are a lot of ugly children’s tennis shoes out there competing for our dollars. 

i went to store after store after store.  i finally found a shoe that i liked, simple pink and white nikes.  now the hard part, finding her size.  i was convinced of her shoe size.  she’s an eight.  so after four stores, i found the right shoe and the right size.  my daft hunting and gathering skills were put to good use, and i celebrated my victory. 

and then tony tried putting them on ella. 

“no, daddy!  these shoes hurt my feet!”  she howled.  now the problem with ella (one of several), is that when she rejects something, there’s little we can do to change her mind. 

“no, really ella.  they’re the right size.  just let me put them on correctly.”  tony wrestled with her to no avail.  “dawn!  i think you got the wrong size.”

“um, no i didn’t.  she wears an eight.”  in the meantime, ella is shrunk in the corner of the couch giving the stinkeye to me, tony, and the shoes.  after a quick coaxing/blackmailing session, we managed to convince ella to give it one more try. 

“OWWWW!  these shoes hurt!”

okay, so i finally got the picture.  she wasn’t just being a drama queen, her feet actually were in no way going to fit into the shoes i spent all afternoon finding.  back to the store for me.

but this was the hard part.  back in the store, i stood looking at the new size–9.  nine.  NINE!  it’s not a measly little eight, it’s practically as big as my foot!  it’s so huge.  surely my little baby can’t fit into a NINE!  i called home just to double check.

“it’s a nine; get over it,” says tony.

ugh.  it was a nine.  her foot fit perfectly.  she is the big kid i don’t want her to be.  she’s growing up, getting bigger, and becoming more her, more ella.  it’s hard to reconcile that sometimes with the image of my sweet little baby ella i have firmly plastered in my mind. 

but that’s okay.  i’m learning to get over it.  and in the meantime, perhaps some mommy shoe shopping therapy will ease my mind….

i was just starting to wash some dishes and then i heard a cry.  a real cry.  not the fake, “i’m whining; give me some attention” cry i usually hear.  oh crap.

i go into the living room and ella is bent over in front of the fireplace, bleeding from her forehead.  aw geez.

i looked at her head and picked out a couple of hairs imbedded in her bloody cut.  gross.  she’s somehow managed to trip head-first into the corner bricks of our fireplace.  she was sporting a 1″ vertical cut, not real deep, but deep enough to send me screaming for tony.

we called the exchange and semi-patiently waited for our doctor to call us back.  and waited.  and waited.  not anxious to spend another $150 at the emergency room to have them tell us it’s nothing, this time we got the go ahead.  the waiting room was full of other parents and children in various stages of discomfort.  after about an hour wait, i guess a gaping wound isn’t much of an emergency, we finally got in to the doctor.  her cut wasn’t deep enough for stitches, thankfully, but she did get liquid sutures.  basically, glorified super glue holding her skin together.

one popsicle later, we were home, tired, but glad it was over.  we got her ready for bed, read two stories, then said our goodnights.

a mere ten minutes later, another cry.

guess who tore off her liquid suture?

so back to the emergency room.  another hour wait in the waiting room.  this time there was another bloody forehead kid and a kid all cut up from a terrarium.  i guess it gets more interesting the later in the evening it is.  another hour of the doctor in and out of the room.  we didn’t get home until one.  and this time, no popsicle.

ugh.  before bed we had a nice discussion about the negative consequences of picking and how mommy and daddy were done going to the emergency room.  she agreed to the terms and conditions, and we’ve since had no problems.

now, we’ll see how it heals and if this affects her future career in forehead modeling.