we hosted an event at our house tonight and I’m just getting to writing a post now. I’ve got to be up at four o'clock to head to Detroit for an office visit with my daughter's retina surgeon so I’ll make this brief. As in I’ll write more tomorrow, brief.
The Big Boy Tiny Girl Friendly Children Visits: our guests arrived tonight right about it bedtime. When I arrived with the other guests I found my daughter writing a Braille letter to her new friend and first arriving guest, Mike. After she was done, she politely excused herself to go up to bed. My son came down shortly afterwards to introduce himself to the guests and then he too, went up to bed. They both really impressed me tonight with how respectful they were of the adult gathering we were having.
Monday, May 7, 2018
Sunday, May 6, 2018
The Tickly Hand
Every few weeks in the middle of the night, my son comes clambering down the stairs in a great hurry. He jumps up on the bed and goes straight to where I sleep. He calls out, “MOM!” in a loud whisper and thrusts his hand at me. By now I’m marginally awake, but I know what’s happened—his hand is asleep. And when his hand falls asleep, it really falls asleep. He wakes up and makes it all the way downstairs to me and then it takes me several minutes to get him sorted enough to go back upstairs.
I suppose I unknowingly started a routine with him the first time it ever happened. He would tell me his hand was, “tickly”. After figuring out he had pins and needles from reduced blood flow and telling him his hand was “asleep” I started working on his hand. I wiggled his fingers around, did some massaging, shook his hand and lower arm to try and get circulation going. When this first started several years ago I did all sorts of things, not really paying attention to what, because I had been asleep and I wasn’t that awake through the process.
These days when my son’s hand is sufficiently awake and past the burning, painful post-asleep stage, my son leaves of his own accord and goes back upstairs. It’s what happens in the interim of arrival and departure that’s interesting.
First off, my son yells at me. Not real yelling, whisper yelling. He can be particularly forcefully loud and quiet at the same time. He’s desperately trying to get me to do what he envisions in his mind as the best and most appropriate move for me to work on his hand at that specific moment. What he doesn’t realize is I’m just randomly trying things because I don’t know where the discomfort is.
He redirects me again and again as the pain moves from one area to another in his hand and fingers. He is fairly strict with what I’m suppose to do and what I shouldn’t be doing. He tells me that I’m just not doing it right and tries to show me where exactly, only he’s frantic at the time because his hand hurts.
He’s gotten better at telling me where exactly and what “move” he wants me to do to help. And I’ve gotten better and figuring out what he actually wants. Someday when he’s older maybe I’ll let him know I just made it all up.
The Big Boy Update: My husband had made some tacos for Uncle Jonathan, Margaret, the children and me tonight. He sent my daughter upstairs to let the rest of us know dinner was ready. My son jumped up and headed for the stairs, calling back over his shoulder, “hey guys. let’s go down and meet dinner.”
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My children tried my bubble tea a few days ago and suddenly decided they wanted to try one themselves. I told them they were like smoothies and they could choose from flavors like mango or strawberry. My son got mango but insisted he didn’t want the boba balls in his. My daughter was adventurous and got them in hers. She had fun sucking up the tapioca balls in her straw and chewing them.
Six Miles: That’s right, I ran. I am as shocked as you are.
I suppose I unknowingly started a routine with him the first time it ever happened. He would tell me his hand was, “tickly”. After figuring out he had pins and needles from reduced blood flow and telling him his hand was “asleep” I started working on his hand. I wiggled his fingers around, did some massaging, shook his hand and lower arm to try and get circulation going. When this first started several years ago I did all sorts of things, not really paying attention to what, because I had been asleep and I wasn’t that awake through the process.
These days when my son’s hand is sufficiently awake and past the burning, painful post-asleep stage, my son leaves of his own accord and goes back upstairs. It’s what happens in the interim of arrival and departure that’s interesting.
First off, my son yells at me. Not real yelling, whisper yelling. He can be particularly forcefully loud and quiet at the same time. He’s desperately trying to get me to do what he envisions in his mind as the best and most appropriate move for me to work on his hand at that specific moment. What he doesn’t realize is I’m just randomly trying things because I don’t know where the discomfort is.
He redirects me again and again as the pain moves from one area to another in his hand and fingers. He is fairly strict with what I’m suppose to do and what I shouldn’t be doing. He tells me that I’m just not doing it right and tries to show me where exactly, only he’s frantic at the time because his hand hurts.
He’s gotten better at telling me where exactly and what “move” he wants me to do to help. And I’ve gotten better and figuring out what he actually wants. Someday when he’s older maybe I’ll let him know I just made it all up.
The Big Boy Update: My husband had made some tacos for Uncle Jonathan, Margaret, the children and me tonight. He sent my daughter upstairs to let the rest of us know dinner was ready. My son jumped up and headed for the stairs, calling back over his shoulder, “hey guys. let’s go down and meet dinner.”
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My children tried my bubble tea a few days ago and suddenly decided they wanted to try one themselves. I told them they were like smoothies and they could choose from flavors like mango or strawberry. My son got mango but insisted he didn’t want the boba balls in his. My daughter was adventurous and got them in hers. She had fun sucking up the tapioca balls in her straw and chewing them.
Six Miles: That’s right, I ran. I am as shocked as you are.
Saturday, May 5, 2018
Social Play
The Big Boy Update:
My son gets in trouble a lot when he plays. I have a hunch it’s because his sister cries and tells on him, but it’s for reasonable cause a lot of the time because he’s hit her or called her names or won’t let her play and they’re intentionally excluding her. A lot or most of the time it’s due to reasonable reasons, mostly instigated by her I would suspect, but since my husband and I aren’t there to see it happen, we don’t truly know, and so we try to help resolve things and invariably this causes my son to get in some manner of trouble or discussion with us on reasonable and kind behavior.
Tonight I went to a party at a friend’s house. It was in another neighborhood where my son didn’t know any of the children save for meeting their two children once before briefly. My husband wasn’t feeling well and he kept my daughter at home since it’s harder to navigate a busy and unfamiliar location with her vision.
My son and I arrived to find boys in the front yard with nerf guns. He opened his car door and ran off. And that set the tone for the night. He managed himself the entire night—about four hours—with zero incidents. No one complained about him; no one cried and said he’d done something unkind or mean and he wasn’t upset at any of the other children.
On the contrary, I had parents tell me how he was being very nice to one of the much younger children. My son played with lots of children across a good sample of ages and did so happily the whole time. When he was hungry he came to find me and then got himself his own food (only letting the dog eat one or two of his self-prepared tacos).
We ended up staying until after ten o’clock because he was having such a positive, good time. He and his sister love each other, but he told me on the ride home they’re frenemies. I would have to agree.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter takes screenshots on her iPad. Constantly. I’m serious about this. I went in and deleted them all yesterday without her knowing. She intentionally takes the screenshots because she wants them—although we’re not sure why. In three weeks she took 2963 of them.
My son gets in trouble a lot when he plays. I have a hunch it’s because his sister cries and tells on him, but it’s for reasonable cause a lot of the time because he’s hit her or called her names or won’t let her play and they’re intentionally excluding her. A lot or most of the time it’s due to reasonable reasons, mostly instigated by her I would suspect, but since my husband and I aren’t there to see it happen, we don’t truly know, and so we try to help resolve things and invariably this causes my son to get in some manner of trouble or discussion with us on reasonable and kind behavior.
Tonight I went to a party at a friend’s house. It was in another neighborhood where my son didn’t know any of the children save for meeting their two children once before briefly. My husband wasn’t feeling well and he kept my daughter at home since it’s harder to navigate a busy and unfamiliar location with her vision.
My son and I arrived to find boys in the front yard with nerf guns. He opened his car door and ran off. And that set the tone for the night. He managed himself the entire night—about four hours—with zero incidents. No one complained about him; no one cried and said he’d done something unkind or mean and he wasn’t upset at any of the other children.
On the contrary, I had parents tell me how he was being very nice to one of the much younger children. My son played with lots of children across a good sample of ages and did so happily the whole time. When he was hungry he came to find me and then got himself his own food (only letting the dog eat one or two of his self-prepared tacos).
We ended up staying until after ten o’clock because he was having such a positive, good time. He and his sister love each other, but he told me on the ride home they’re frenemies. I would have to agree.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter takes screenshots on her iPad. Constantly. I’m serious about this. I went in and deleted them all yesterday without her knowing. She intentionally takes the screenshots because she wants them—although we’re not sure why. In three weeks she took 2963 of them.
Friday, May 4, 2018
Some Days
Some days are good days pain-wise. Some days are bad. The situation in my spine is progressing and although I’m a long ways off from needing surgery I was told by my orthopedic neurosurgeon in January, it’s getting worse over time. I expected this based on everything I’ve been told over the years, but that doesn’t make it easier to deal with even so.
I had a steroid injection in my spinal column earlier this week that may help in a week or two and I have a second injection in a month. Options other than medication are good, but I’m having to use more nerve medication and other things over time like NSAIDs and muscle relaxants and pain medication when it gets very bad.
I don’t like it, but they do help and they're better than surgery, which will be significant. Hopefully I’m a decade or so off from that, but only time will tell. The space in my cervixal spinal column continues to decline with bone spurs and disc degeneration. For now though we're going to keep on with all other options and hope things stay stable for as long as possible.
The Big Boy Update: My husband got a big package in the mail today and my son insisted on opening it unassisted. He was having a hard time getting through the copious amounts of tape but we left him alone. About five minutes later I heard him call out from the living room, “I found a weak point”. Another five minutes and he was in and dad's new pull-behind golf bag with orange wheels was freed from the box.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter came in today and asked if I wanted to know what they listened to in the taxi during the rides to and from school. She asked Alexa to play the call letters of the radio station and a religious radio station came on. She says she likes the music and the commercials. We played the station on the house speakers for a good while this afternoon.
I had a steroid injection in my spinal column earlier this week that may help in a week or two and I have a second injection in a month. Options other than medication are good, but I’m having to use more nerve medication and other things over time like NSAIDs and muscle relaxants and pain medication when it gets very bad.
I don’t like it, but they do help and they're better than surgery, which will be significant. Hopefully I’m a decade or so off from that, but only time will tell. The space in my cervixal spinal column continues to decline with bone spurs and disc degeneration. For now though we're going to keep on with all other options and hope things stay stable for as long as possible.
The Big Boy Update: My husband got a big package in the mail today and my son insisted on opening it unassisted. He was having a hard time getting through the copious amounts of tape but we left him alone. About five minutes later I heard him call out from the living room, “I found a weak point”. Another five minutes and he was in and dad's new pull-behind golf bag with orange wheels was freed from the box.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter came in today and asked if I wanted to know what they listened to in the taxi during the rides to and from school. She asked Alexa to play the call letters of the radio station and a religious radio station came on. She says she likes the music and the commercials. We played the station on the house speakers for a good while this afternoon.
Thursday, May 3, 2018
I Don’t Want to Write a Blog Post Tonight
Some nights I don’t want to write a blog post. Most nights I look forward to getting to the basement after the children are in bed to write about something from the day or thoughts that have been mulling about in my mind. But some nights I go to the bedroom to change into my pajamas and think how nice it would be if I didn’t have to go to the basement to write a post.
What happens though is I get to the basement, pull up the chair, have my watch unlock my Mac, open up my browser and start typing. And then I just keep going. Last night, for instance, I thought was going to be a very short blog post. We had hosted an event at the house and after the preparation for the day and subsequent cleanup afterwards not to mention the meetings and appointments in addition of the day and I just wanted nothing to do with the keyboard and Blogger.com
But once I started typing I got into a mental story and the post turned out to be fairly long. It’s hard to tell what will come out when I start typing. For tonight, I’m going to bed right after this post.
The Big Boy Update: My son has a teacher workday tomorrow. He wants to play Uno with me. Specifically “Uno H2O”, which is just the standard card game, only on plastic cards that can get wet. I hope he doesn’t want to play in the bathtub together. We set a calendar entry for tomorrow at 10:00AM to play.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter has been on her antibiotic for a urinary tract infection for a day now. She did wet her pants late in the day a bit, but she was very busy on the playground swinging as high as she could with lots of friends around playing with her. And who really has time to stop to go to the bathroom when you’re having fun like that?
What happens though is I get to the basement, pull up the chair, have my watch unlock my Mac, open up my browser and start typing. And then I just keep going. Last night, for instance, I thought was going to be a very short blog post. We had hosted an event at the house and after the preparation for the day and subsequent cleanup afterwards not to mention the meetings and appointments in addition of the day and I just wanted nothing to do with the keyboard and Blogger.com
But once I started typing I got into a mental story and the post turned out to be fairly long. It’s hard to tell what will come out when I start typing. For tonight, I’m going to bed right after this post.
The Big Boy Update: My son has a teacher workday tomorrow. He wants to play Uno with me. Specifically “Uno H2O”, which is just the standard card game, only on plastic cards that can get wet. I hope he doesn’t want to play in the bathtub together. We set a calendar entry for tomorrow at 10:00AM to play.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter has been on her antibiotic for a urinary tract infection for a day now. She did wet her pants late in the day a bit, but she was very busy on the playground swinging as high as she could with lots of friends around playing with her. And who really has time to stop to go to the bathroom when you’re having fun like that?
Wednesday, May 2, 2018
Not What We Thought
My daughter has been itchy for a while now. It wasn’t just when she would go to the bathroom, it was most of the time she said. She said there was no stinging or burning when she urinated, but there was a lot of itching. She’s had this happen before and we had gotten some advice from multiple doctors on it, saying it was uncommon for children to have urinary tract infections, but they could have a mild yeast infection that we could treat at home.
For an adult female you go a more internal medication application route, but for children, applying yeast medication cream externally typically solves the problem. So we did that, but it continued to itch. She was urinating in her pants sometimes and was wetting the bed at night as well, which was unlike her.
But she wasn’t going to the bathroom with a significantly increased frequency, which would be another sign of a UTI. She had no fever and aside from complaints that things itched, and some wet linens, she wasn’t complaining that much of bad symptoms.
We gave her bleach baths (a capful of bleach in a full tub) on prior recommendation from her dermatologist. It sounds like a lot, to put bleach in the bath, but it’s less intense than the chlorine in a chlorinated pool we were told. We also found out today from her pediatrician that children with MRSA infections have a bleach bath every night for multiple weeks and that it can make a significant difference.
We were trying avenues. We also put steroid cream on her because her eczema itches on other parts of her body and her brother gets it on his genitals, but that didn’t help either.
So today we took her into the doctor and, guess what, she has a UTI. She’s probably had it for some time now but because we’d been told they were uncommon in young children and the fact that she wasn’t demonstrating typical signs, we had convinced ourselves it just couldn’t be one.
She’s on an antibiotic as of this evening and should hopefully feel much better soon. I was talking to her doctor today, saying we felt like negligent parents for not bringing her in sooner but we weren’t the type to rush to the doctor at the first sign of something possibly being wrong—because with children, many times there’s nothing wrong.
This time we talked ourselves out of what it would now seem like were clear signs. Next time we’ll know. She’s been so good through it all and not much of a complainer I’ve been impressed. I’ve had UTI’s before and I wouldn’t have handled it as easily as she has.
The Big Boy Tiny Girl Party Visitor Update: We had a gathering at the house tonight. The children were meant to be upstairs and out of sight when the guests arrived as it was shortly before bedtime. They wanted to meet the guests though and couldn’t help coming down to say hello when they heard guests arriving. I was at the forum at school prior to our trustees and search committee members coming to our house for the post-meeting gathering and left my husband to heat and put out the food and get the children ready for bed. It turned out he had more to do than anticipated so he told them they could help by completely getting themselves ready for bed without him. And they did and then went upstairs and were quiet. Both he and I were impressed with their initiative and respectfulness tonight. They got extra stamps in thanks.
For an adult female you go a more internal medication application route, but for children, applying yeast medication cream externally typically solves the problem. So we did that, but it continued to itch. She was urinating in her pants sometimes and was wetting the bed at night as well, which was unlike her.
But she wasn’t going to the bathroom with a significantly increased frequency, which would be another sign of a UTI. She had no fever and aside from complaints that things itched, and some wet linens, she wasn’t complaining that much of bad symptoms.
We gave her bleach baths (a capful of bleach in a full tub) on prior recommendation from her dermatologist. It sounds like a lot, to put bleach in the bath, but it’s less intense than the chlorine in a chlorinated pool we were told. We also found out today from her pediatrician that children with MRSA infections have a bleach bath every night for multiple weeks and that it can make a significant difference.
We were trying avenues. We also put steroid cream on her because her eczema itches on other parts of her body and her brother gets it on his genitals, but that didn’t help either.
So today we took her into the doctor and, guess what, she has a UTI. She’s probably had it for some time now but because we’d been told they were uncommon in young children and the fact that she wasn’t demonstrating typical signs, we had convinced ourselves it just couldn’t be one.
She’s on an antibiotic as of this evening and should hopefully feel much better soon. I was talking to her doctor today, saying we felt like negligent parents for not bringing her in sooner but we weren’t the type to rush to the doctor at the first sign of something possibly being wrong—because with children, many times there’s nothing wrong.
This time we talked ourselves out of what it would now seem like were clear signs. Next time we’ll know. She’s been so good through it all and not much of a complainer I’ve been impressed. I’ve had UTI’s before and I wouldn’t have handled it as easily as she has.
The Big Boy Tiny Girl Party Visitor Update: We had a gathering at the house tonight. The children were meant to be upstairs and out of sight when the guests arrived as it was shortly before bedtime. They wanted to meet the guests though and couldn’t help coming down to say hello when they heard guests arriving. I was at the forum at school prior to our trustees and search committee members coming to our house for the post-meeting gathering and left my husband to heat and put out the food and get the children ready for bed. It turned out he had more to do than anticipated so he told them they could help by completely getting themselves ready for bed without him. And they did and then went upstairs and were quiet. Both he and I were impressed with their initiative and respectfulness tonight. They got extra stamps in thanks.
Tuesday, May 1, 2018
Faucet Fixed
My children make a mess of things when they brush their teeth. My son is pretty good in some ways while his sister is good in the ways she can be, but she has limitations. For instance, how do you get toothpaste on your toothbrush when you can’t see if the toothpaste is coming out?
We had to come up with a plan where she holds the toothbrush and puts one finger on the bristles and then squeezes the toothpaste until she feels it coming out. When enough is on the toothbrush (usually it's too little or way too much) she drags the toothpaste downwards to cut off the blob and leave it on the bristles. Then she has to find the cap, which she’s lost by now.
That’s just one of a collection of things she has to do differently to get her nighttime routine complete. Only this post isn’t about her, it’s about the faucet and the leak—a leak I didn’t realize was a leak for a good while because I thought it was her and my son making a mess with the cup, the faucet, spitting into the sink, washing their hands and the swish.
But there was a leak. It was a slow leak trickling out from under the cold water handle. I was pretty sure it was the o-ring, but hey, it was a slow leak and I was probably going to have to do a heck of a lot of research to find out how to get a replacement o-ring (it that was indeed the problem). So I put it off and wiped up the small amount of water every night.
Then today I’d had enough of the procrastination and set to work on the handle. But I got stuck. Or rather it was stuck. The installers hadn’t left us with the manual for the faucets but some Googling, removal of a cap and two screws and I thought I had it. The handle should have lifted free but it wasn’t and I didn’t want to break it because I’d rather have a leaking faucet than a broken faucet.
So I brought in my husband. And he couldn’t get it off either. It was probably mineral deposits a Google search said. Hit it with a mallet (gently) it said. Use some spray lubricant. Pull upwards really hard. I tried them all and just as I was about to give up, the handle came off.
That’s when my husband got interested. We pulled the faucet apart and found the o-ring. It wasn’t torn or in bad shape but it was being replaced, darn it. We pulled out the, “Complete Set of Every O-Ring You’ll Ever Need” kit I had ordered from China a while back. Actually, I’m not sure that was the name of it, but it has a vast collection of o-rings and I had gotten it because hey, who knows when you’ll need an o-ring and what do you know, I needed an o-ring. Having the right o-ring on hand pretty much made my day.
But the faucet still wasn’t fixed. I made the mistake of not taking pictures of every step in the disassembly process with the key one of what orientation to put the pieces back into place so the off and on orientation of the handle was where it should have been.
I removed buildup from the pieces, we replaced the o-ring, reassembled it three times using trial and error and a little rotational deduction to get the orientation correct again and turned the water back on. And it worked. And it didn’t leak. There were high-fives. I don’t know a damn thing about plumbing but with Google and a box of o-rings from China we got the faucet fixed.
The Big Boy Update: My son came out of the bedroom after bedtime tonight. He has very low self-esteem sometimes. He was talking about how he didn’t deserve to go to his school and was never a good role model like his classmates. He said he hated himself and he couldn’t do anything well. My husband talked to him for a while and tried to turn his feelings around. We’re not sure it sunk in, but we’ll keep trying.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: We’d backed out of the driveway today and my daughter apparently hadn’t gotten her seatbelt clicked in yet because she said in an exasperated tone, “my seatbelt’s not cooperating with me!”
We had to come up with a plan where she holds the toothbrush and puts one finger on the bristles and then squeezes the toothpaste until she feels it coming out. When enough is on the toothbrush (usually it's too little or way too much) she drags the toothpaste downwards to cut off the blob and leave it on the bristles. Then she has to find the cap, which she’s lost by now.
That’s just one of a collection of things she has to do differently to get her nighttime routine complete. Only this post isn’t about her, it’s about the faucet and the leak—a leak I didn’t realize was a leak for a good while because I thought it was her and my son making a mess with the cup, the faucet, spitting into the sink, washing their hands and the swish.
But there was a leak. It was a slow leak trickling out from under the cold water handle. I was pretty sure it was the o-ring, but hey, it was a slow leak and I was probably going to have to do a heck of a lot of research to find out how to get a replacement o-ring (it that was indeed the problem). So I put it off and wiped up the small amount of water every night.
Then today I’d had enough of the procrastination and set to work on the handle. But I got stuck. Or rather it was stuck. The installers hadn’t left us with the manual for the faucets but some Googling, removal of a cap and two screws and I thought I had it. The handle should have lifted free but it wasn’t and I didn’t want to break it because I’d rather have a leaking faucet than a broken faucet.
So I brought in my husband. And he couldn’t get it off either. It was probably mineral deposits a Google search said. Hit it with a mallet (gently) it said. Use some spray lubricant. Pull upwards really hard. I tried them all and just as I was about to give up, the handle came off.
That’s when my husband got interested. We pulled the faucet apart and found the o-ring. It wasn’t torn or in bad shape but it was being replaced, darn it. We pulled out the, “Complete Set of Every O-Ring You’ll Ever Need” kit I had ordered from China a while back. Actually, I’m not sure that was the name of it, but it has a vast collection of o-rings and I had gotten it because hey, who knows when you’ll need an o-ring and what do you know, I needed an o-ring. Having the right o-ring on hand pretty much made my day.
But the faucet still wasn’t fixed. I made the mistake of not taking pictures of every step in the disassembly process with the key one of what orientation to put the pieces back into place so the off and on orientation of the handle was where it should have been.
I removed buildup from the pieces, we replaced the o-ring, reassembled it three times using trial and error and a little rotational deduction to get the orientation correct again and turned the water back on. And it worked. And it didn’t leak. There were high-fives. I don’t know a damn thing about plumbing but with Google and a box of o-rings from China we got the faucet fixed.
The Big Boy Update: My son came out of the bedroom after bedtime tonight. He has very low self-esteem sometimes. He was talking about how he didn’t deserve to go to his school and was never a good role model like his classmates. He said he hated himself and he couldn’t do anything well. My husband talked to him for a while and tried to turn his feelings around. We’re not sure it sunk in, but we’ll keep trying.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: We’d backed out of the driveway today and my daughter apparently hadn’t gotten her seatbelt clicked in yet because she said in an exasperated tone, “my seatbelt’s not cooperating with me!”
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)