...or so says Sofia, to Meghan (our incredible and lovely nanny who we adore) and I today. We both cracked up! Apparently four is just so radically different from three, that she'll be a whole new, and improved girl. Both my girls have a propensity for saying precocious things, but this one was over the top, even for one of them. I couldn't believe she said that, and in my mind, I was wondering what she'd been thinking about, and how her thought process had transpired to get her to utter such a thing unprovoked. I know she's really been counting down to her fourth birthday, which is in May. I love that she said it though. That's my girl.
Sofie's had a bit of a rough road to hoe the past week. We had our 'first blood' last week. Or rather, our first REAL scary,bloody,rush-to-the-ER-trying-not-to-cry, -also-not-hit-people-while-I-drive, oh-no-I-almost-went-off-a-cliff-gotta-get-to-the-ER-kind of experience last week. And it was traumatizing. I haven't decided yet if it was more traumatizing for me, or Fia. It's a close tie. Below is taken from an email I sent to a dear friend, describing the experience, and so I pretty much just copied the email word-for-word, since it's a lot to write and pretty much encapsulates what I want to say, so I don't have to re-write it all, so, without further adieu...
First Blood...
We went to Las Vegas for 5 days, for WPPI's (wedding and portrait photographer's international, a group I've been a member of for the past four years), yearly tradeshow and convention, and it was great, however, about 5 minutes before we picked the girls up from mom and dad's house, Fia was hanging from one of the 4 metal posts on mom' and dad's poster bed. She lost her grip and slid down the pole, slicing the back of her leg wide open on some metal leaves that decorated the post. The cut ran about the width of her left leg, just above the knee. It sliced through her skin and fatty tissue, but fortunately did not cut the muscle. The cut went about 1/2"+ deep. Not sure how many stitches she got, but she got 2 sets, one under the skin, one to hold the skin together (I didn't know they did that either). 
It was so scary to come to mom and dad's and have dad's first words to me be, (with fear in his eyes), 'Now Kelly, don't freak out.' Now how do you NOT freak out when someone says that to you??? Especially in regards to your kids. However, I held it together fairly well. ANYway, dad told me what happened, and I ran down to get her, and she was laying in mom's arms, crying and kind of screaming, and when she saw us, lost it even more. Bella was also a mess (she's such a sensitive tender-heart, and to see her sister in pain like that, and have watched it happen, she was pretty freaked out. So dad showed Ross the slice (Ross said it looked like a shark had taken a bite out of her leg, that's how big and open it was). I didn't want to look, so I was up at her head, talking to her, and cudding her,while mom held her. From there Ross took her (thankfully dad had worked really fast, and covered it with towels, and put a lot of pressure on it (which the doctor had said was really good, because she didn't lose as much blood as she could have). Anyhow, Ross took her and I grabbed Bella and with Ross in the back seat holding Fia, I drove to the ER (if you can imagine how I was shaking and scared while driving) we were all crying, well all the girls were crying, Ross was holding it together much better than I was (thank God), and just kept reminding me to not kill us on the drive to the ER. On our trip to the ER, Ross said to Sofie, 'honey, you're just a little sick, and we're going to take you to the doctor and the doctor will fix it and make it all better. And Sofie starts crying even harder, and says, "I don't want to go to heaven like Grammy,"
Anyhow, we got to the ER, they took her in immediately. They told us that they could stitch her up while she was conscious, but that they'd need to put a numbing shot directly into the wound, and from there, kids usually lose it and have to be restrained and wrapped up in a sheet, or we could knock her out. Well, as you can imagine, we took option b. It was scary seeing her knocked out like that, but I was so grateful she wouldn't have to remember them stitching her up (or getting a shot directly into her wound, when the shots they gave her to knock her out were almost more than she could take). Anyway, she started waking up a bit when they were stitching her up -- and she really fought the drug they gave her, trying not to fall asleep, and kind of shaking herself awake while she was going under. (I didn't realize it would take so long to stitch her up - more than 20 minutes), but she was still out, although she sorta came awake a few times, and struggled, so the doctor number her leg up in a case she did wake all the way up. Anyhow, from there the wrapped up the wound (I never looked at it -- as it was, my stomach flipped upside down -- and still does - every time I think/thought about it).
So they wrapped her up, and I held her on the bed, cuddling her while she woke up from the aneshtesia. That was bizarre. For about 15 minutes she'd start crying, and cry, 'mommy! mommy!' every minute or so, which the doctor said was normal, because she was all groggy and out of it, and had no idea what was going on. So she cried and cried and slowly as she came out of it, she got better. She was pretty 
freaked out by what had happened still, but was SUCH a trooper. In fact, after she came out of it she was *so* cute and funny. It was like she was drunk or something, she was all wobbly and dizzy, couldn't sit up by herself, but kept trying to. And she said the funniest things. She looked at me, and with this little high-out-of-it voice, said, "Mommy!! Why do you have four eyes, mommy??" and stuff like that. It was SO funny. And we told her how brave she was, and she held my face, and was stroking my cheeks (which she does normally anyhow), but the way she looked at me, all dreamy and out of it, and stroking me cheeks and looking into my eyes, saying, "I love you mommy, I love you." in her little singsongy voice was so precious. And when we took her out to the car, I carried her like a baby, to not disturb her boo boo, she looked at the sky, and said, "Look! Mommy!! There's two moons!!" with this incredible wonder in her voice, and she kept looking out the window the whole ride home, asking me to look and see. She also kept repeating how the doctor's gave her a 'sleepy shot,' and then she woke up and her boo boo was all better!! and then she'd cheer - for her all-better-boo-boo, and for her doctor's who made it all better, and for her for being brave, and for mommy and yay, yay, yay! We all cracked up, and it was a relief to have her like that, (despite the drugged state), just having her be her little happy self, despite the circumstances made it so much less scary.
Anyhow, that was our first real blood or serious thing, and it was super-freaky. And while she really doesn't like hearing about how she got her wound, (and seriously freaks out even having to think about seeing it -- wrapping it in new gauze after doing a sponge bath was its own trauma), she's really doing great, despite it all, and she really was an amazing trooper, and so brave. I think in some ways it was more traumatizing for me, than it was, ultimately, for her. She's moving around just fine, the only thing, like I said, is she gets VERY scared when she thinks about it or when even asked to take off her bandage, or thinks she might see even a bit of it. (FYI - These photos were taken a few weeks ago, before the blood and gore).
So that's the latest, besides that, we've all been busy, working hard and looking forward to Easter break, and spending some family time together.
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