Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

11 Feb

Like the Weather

Posted by jaysaint in Alden, Uncategorized.

I’ve been meaning to write about the delightful stage of three years old. I’ve composed the post in my mind a few times, just never near a keyboard. I want to remember this lovely, tractible boy who is still baby enough to be all innocence and light.

I was thumbing through Your Three Year Old: Friend or Enemy by Ames and Ilg. I first heard of this series of books from AskMoxie. Even though they are seventies-riffic (All mommies are at home. All daddies are the authority figures.), I’ve yet to read anything else that gives me as clear a window into what my kids are going through developmentally. I particularly appreciate that there aren’t varied and complicated recommendations. Often all I need to know is “why.” I definitely don’t need to feel like I’m doing it wrong. I kind of love that the thrust of the 3-year-old book seems to be that: Three is awesome. Three-and-a-half is kind of terrible. Definitely get a babysitter as much as possible for three-and-a-half. Have you tried preschool? Just get that kid out of your hair.

So maybe two weeks ago I was reading aloud to Damon the part where it says that it doesn’t even have much to say about the first half of three, as those kids are generally so agreeable and fun. We marveled. We appreciated that was the case, and we talked about what a pleasure our little Alden is.

I know you saw this coming. Boom! Before I could write about three, we hit the developmental phase of 3.5. I can only assume that’s what happened. Or Alden has just plain lost his mind. The “Don’t look at me!”s are flying. Even the slappy hands are flying occassionally, and we haven’t seen those in months. He likes to wake me up at 5am to be mad at me. Oh my god he is trying my patience. Face washing is an affront. Serving him dinner is an attack. You get the picture.

I remind myself of the wise advice I read somewhere or other, that children need your compassion the most when they seem to deserve it the least. Likely true of adults as well, but they’re on their own.

6 Feb

Bookmarking: Valentine’s Day

Posted by jaysaint in Uncategorized. Tagged: , .

The more time I spend with the stylish, the clever and the crafty, the less satisfied I am with my store-bought options. Etsy is always a good fallback, but nothing can compare with doing a thing with my own hands. Of course nothing else can compare with the frustration and waste when that process doesn’t work out quite right. Or at all.

I’m pretty needy when it comes to DIY. I don’t have  much free time. I know, who does? But really, I don’t. Two very small kids and a wonderful but consuming job means I can go days without a moment to myself. Also, about those small kids. I don’t want a bunch of choking hazards scattered around my house. And I also don’t want a bunch of really delicate stuff hanging around, waiting to be smashed.

So I’m on the lookout for the dodo birds of craft projects: Easy, fast, clever, inexpensive, kid-friendly.

Believe it or not, I’ve found a few small possibilities for Valentine’s Day. Most of which I won’t write about now, since Damon sometimes drops by. (Don’t get your hopes up honey, we’re talking small potatoes!).

But my Mom, who is staying with us all this month, is still trying to figure out all this new-fangled computer stuff. So I feel safe to tell you that I found the cutest thing, so easy, and she’ll LOVE. She’s always hungry for more photos of the kids, so early on Valentine’s Day morning I’m going to sneak into her bathroom and do this on the mirror:

From Martha.

The only way I could screw it up (I think) is to fail to order the photos on time. And those are already on their way to me. It feels so good to occassionally be running on time. If you want to do this, you’ll need 52 verticals. I counted twice.

There’s a neat service called Shape Collage that will make a much more interesting heart (or virtually anything else) for you, but I want my mom to be able to take those pictures down and stick them right in frames.

 

5 Feb

Yet Another Post About My Nose

Posted by jaysaint in Uncategorized.

Remember when I thanked the Baby Jesus for hydrocodone? Joke was on me, because that drug turned on me shortly after that writing. I won’t color your day with all the details, but let’s just say that my constitution was not up to the jump from an occasional Motrin to The Hard Stuff. My desperate messages to the on-call doctor were met with, “Hrm… I’m not really comfortable prescribing you anything else. Try Tylenol.” I guess as long as he’s comfortable. Now, I understand exactly what his concern would be with giving a patient he doesn’t know something like a narcotic pain killer. But still, shouldn’t there be a list of people who, say, got their faces cut open that very day? And maybe those people could get a little slack from the suspicious late-night doctors. Apparently not in this case. And so I white-knuckled it through the night. Bad. Very bad.

The sun did finally rise and when I got my doctor’s nurse on the phone she, bless her, texted him in the middle of surgery to get permission to help me out. As someone who was on the table yesterday, I did not approve of this interruption. But as me, it certainly seemed like the only reasonable thing to do. Tylenol with codeine was procured and life became bearable again.

Also really interesting: I would have sworn to you that I didn’t feel much different on codeine other than the relief from the pain. Except for how I spent all day insisting I could hear Elliot crying, while mom and Damon told me “Not so.” So I guess I was totally normal except for the hallucinations.

Yesterday the splints came out. The less said about that the better. And now I’m cruising by on just a little Tylenol and extra rest. I think that means I can ring down the curtain on this fascinating story, at least until a few weeks or months go by and the intended benefits kick in. I plan to do some really skillful, varsity-level breathing.

2 Feb

Quick Update

Posted by jaysaint in Uncategorized.

Hydrocodone is starting to kick in, thank you baby Jesus. Feel like I have been hit in the face with a shovel — much more pain than I expected. Operation took one hour and is being hailed as a success by surgeon. Thank you for the good wishes. I’m pleased to say that my blog friends will not be needed to help raise my kids, as I survived the general anesthesia. Did I mention that was the plan?

How much you want to bet I won’t remember writing this?

2 Feb

60%

Posted by jaysaint in Elliot, speech, Uncategorized. Tagged: .

A very kind developmental specialist came to our house last Thursday. She brought tennis balls! And blocks! And she was very popular with Elliot. He flirted and giggled, really putting his best baby foot forward. She was a little bit of  a tease, what with all the putting the ball under the cup, but Elli was able to get past it.

I told her about the things most concerning to me. He has a few words he used to say, and now doesn’t. He will no longer tell me what the damn dog says, even though he used to do it unprompted regularly. Occasionally he sounds like he has something in his mouth. He doesn’t have many words. He doesn’t do many consonants. He’s not much of a babbler. I felt like every sentence I said started with “He doesn’t…”

All that said, when she called to say he’d scored 40% behind on communication skills it rocked me back a little bit. We’re a family of communicators. We will communicate the stuffing out of you. If she’d told me he is 40% behind on parallel parking or swimming in a straight line skills I could make a very strong nature AND nurture argument for shrugging my shoulders and saying, “What can you expect?”

Still, as the world is a funny place, 40% behind is better than 20% behind. 40% qualifies him for early intervention services. 20% qualifies him for “Sorry about your luck!” I did share with the evaluator that my greatest fear was not having a problem I suspected confirmed but that he’d be one of those kids who loses out on help because his problems aren’t quite bad enough. We were prepared to go it alone through private speech therapy or whatever else he needs, but in a situation like this there is no way we can recreate the comprehensive nature of being embraced by “the system.”

By the way, I think I need to probe with them if Elliot’s issues can be fully explained as a communication deficit. I don’t think he’s not saying “woof woof” anymore because he physically can’t. I don’t know why. Maybe he’s messing with me.

Our case worker (or whatever you might call that person who will  coordinate our efforts) will come back on Valentine’s Day to create a plan. I think it’s a baby version of the IEP (individual education plan) that older kids get. I’m looking forward to seeing her, both because I’m eager to continue to unravel the mystery and because I enjoy any reason to talk about my kid unreservedly without worrying about social niceties that require I let it go already (Oh hey, blog readers!).

Here’s why I’m still not losing sleep over this: With the exception of some teething rage, Elliot is a perfectly cheerful little guy. I know that learning deficits have the potential to some day make him miserable. But for now they’re not. So we’re going to regard our development glass as half full. It’s more than half full. It’s 60% full.

On an unrelated note, I’m leaving in 45 minutes to get sinus surgery. It all happened so fast. Last week I went in for an allergist appointment. Cat scans happened. A doctor said, “You have the biggest turbinates I’ve ever seen.” (Go me!) and then they were booking the surgical suite. I’ve never had general anesthesia before. I like to micromanage my doctors in process, remind them that I’m there and a person and all that. So I’m probably a little more nervous than I’m letting on. I’ve heard everything from, “You’ll be up and about in a day or so.” to “You’re going to need to go on short-term disability.” We’ll know the truth shortly.

 

 

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »