One Stuck Head and Two Loaves of Bread

Today Chris from Parents as Teachers came and we had great fun playing with the toys and books she brought. Tristan and I saw her to her car, waving bye as she went around the corner. Tristan ran into the house before me and as I came in he said, "Lainey's stuck." This is nothing new. Alaina gets stuck in something every day. Today it happened to be her head stuck in the back of a chair. (We had made a huge, fun fort out of all our kitchen chairs, so they were all in the living room and on their sides, apparently just waiting for someone to stick their head into.)

I gave Lainey a "you trouble-head" look and proceeded to get her head out of the chair. Except that it wouldn't come. No matter what way I moved it, I could not figure out how she got it in there! We tried turning the chair, tilting the chair, tilting her head. But no matter how we maneuvered, we couldn't even get halfway up her ears before she was wailing and her ears were about to be ripped off. I suspect that her head must have swollen after she shoved it through, because it is inconceivable to me that it fit in there on its own.


I tried for about fifteen minutes, while Lainey sat on the floor with a chair on her head and shoulders, intermittently crying and looking worried and Tristan sat nearby crying, "My poor baby sister!! Her head is stuck!!"

The camera batteries wouldn't work, and so I couldn't get any pictures. Which is too bad, because it would have helped a lot with the visualization! So here is just a cute picture of Lainey, only stuck in a tree.

Finally, even though this was a Pottery Barn chair that I dearly love and keep in the living room, I knew that it would have to be sacrificed if ever Alaina was to live a normal life again. I got a big knife that we have that works on branches and things, but it was slow going. I called Danny and he said to use the hand saw in the garage. It was very scary to saw back and forth with Alaina's feet inches away, but I said a prayer and she was good and held still. After two cuts and half the side of the back of the chair gone, she was released at last!! She smiled really big and said, "Oh, thank you, Mommy!" Tristan said, "That was great, wasn't that Lainey?!"


Alaina has gotten stuck in more things than any kid I have ever known. Nearly every day she puts her hand down a tube, her fingers in a cart or her head in some railing and needs help getting out. If there is any way any of her appendages can fit anywhere, she will try it. When we visited Justin, we had only been there minutes, when she had her arm stuck down a little hole in a stepstool. In the end we had to butter her whole arm to get it out. When we went to Jon Shipley's parents for his luncheon, Alaina got her head stuck in the cat climber and it took several people to get her back out again. Only she would have thought of trying to fit in the cat carrier at home recently, and I was quite surprised that I only had to stand it on its end to get her out.


Danny thinks we can repair the chair with glue, sandpaper and paint, but I think it's a goner. It will be a living testament and reminder that if there is a hole, Alaina will get stuck in it.

The camera decided to start working again later, so here is a picture of the chair, post-Alaina. I think it looks like some strange, optical illusion against the white walls.

On the plus side, we made homemade bread and doughnuts for Young Women's on Tuesday and my two loaves turned out great!!! For breakfast I had a big, thick slice of warm bread with butter and jelly on it and a mug of hot cocoa. Perfect. It is a good thing to start my day off happily, because there is no way of knowing what the rest of the day may bring!!

P.S. Alaina and Tristan are sharing a room now, and I keep saying I will put pictures up of how the room looks. So here are a few shots. I think it is cute, but will look wayyy better with a coat of paint on the walls. I also think that now I would go for longer curtains, but I don't think I could justify spending money for new ones, when the ones I have were bought just for that room. Also, I am getting two little while shelves for holding books to go on the wall by each of their beds. Mommy got them on Craigslist for like $5 each, and is kind enough to let us have them! (I had to spend a long time convincing her to let me pay her the $5 for them.) So, use your imagination, and someday I will put pictures up of "after" the painting job!!

This side of the room has Lainey's bed.

This has toys and puzzles and things in it, and clothes in the bottom drawers, and the toy chest is next to it. There is also a small bookcase in the closet below their clothes with more toys on it. It's too bad my kids don't have very many toys to play with!

I just got the little red lamp this Saturday at a garage sale for $3! I think it's really cute.

The whole "sharing a room" thing is going quite well. They think it's really exciting and I think Alaina feels like she is getting away with something. Like that we haven't noticed that she isn't sleeping in her old room. The only downside is that Alaina gets up when Tristan gets up, but that's getting better, too. Sometimes we can hear Tristan yelling at Alaina to get in bed, because she has to stay there until the sun comes up, which is what we told him. But it really rather defeats the purpose, if you get woke up anyway by one of them yelling at the other to "go back to sleep!"