The Rubberband Story

Okay, a lot of you already have heard this story, but I couldn't leave anybody in the dark about our eventful Christmas Eve this year. So we went to Utah this Christmas to visit James' family. We put Natalie in the same room as us in a port-a-crib. So on Christmas Eve, she kept waking up, like every hour, and kind of crying/whimpering. At first, I thought she may have been cold, so we made sure to bundle her up and put lots of blankets on her. But then she would wake up again and cry. I couldn't get her to tell us what was wrong, so I assumed she just wanted our attention or something. Well, finally at 5 am James got up with her and took her to get some water. As soon as she got out of the room, she was totally herself again and said, "Daddy, it's kinda dark in here" and "Wanna play hide and seek?". So eventually James brought her back and put her in bed with me. She fell asleep for about half an hour and then woke up again crying like she was in pain. I could not figure out what was wrong! I said, "Do you feel like you need to throw up?", she shook her head. Then she started grabbing her foot, "Does your foot hurt?", she nods her head yes. So I start thinking she is having foot cramps and there is some deficiency in her diet or something. I start massaging her legs, eventually she calms down. We finally get up at 7am and go upstairs. We watch a couple shows, I put her in her high chair for breakfast... When I get her out of her high chair she starts walking really strange, like she has a dirty diaper. So I go get her a new diaper. I take off her pajama pants and am changing her diaper (which was not dirty, by the way) when I look down and notice that Natalie has taken the rubberbands from her braids and put them around her ankles! They were black and blue when I took them off! I could not believe it, I felt so bad! But how could you ever guess that? Silly girl!



It's been a week since then, and Natalie's ankles are still red where she put the rubberbands. By the way, this is not the worst story I have about Natalie over the break. More to come...