Bah-Humbug

This is likely going to be a negetive post, so if you don't want to hear my negetivity, just stop reading now.

 

I am not in the Christmas spirit. At all. This is not me. I usually love it. I think I am stressed and a little depressed this time around. Why? There are so many factors going on here, it's not even funny.

 

Christmas is 10 days away and I have not yet bought a single gift. I go to a store, then walk around aimlessly and walk out the door with nothing. My Christmas spirit is gone. I think I have begun to loathe the fact that Christmas is about gifts. There's nothing I want for Christmas. There are a few things I need, but all are over $100 and it's just rediculous of me to expect someon to get me anything over $100. If you asked me what my favorite Christmas gift of all time was, I could not give you an answer. My Christmas memories are not of gifts, but of good times with my family. Memories of finding a surprise in my shoes on St. Nick Day (and the excitement had absolutely nothing to do with what was actually left in my shoes). Memories of hearing bells outside and a jolly old man coming to the door (later I learned it was the neighbor guy from across the street). Watching my Mother prepare the Christmas feast and having all my aunts and uncles and cousins come over to eat the glorious feast. Memories of my Uncle John reading the Night Before Christmas while the adults sip their cocktails and the kids sit on the floor in front of him. THAT is what Christmas is to me.

 

This year I have been told what to do. Here are some examples.

• "Tell me what you want for Christmas." Money to pay the bills. Next.
• "What does Jesse want for Christmas?" Um, he can't even talk. He'd probably be happy with a bottle of Ranch dressing.
• "You are assigned to make peanut butter cookies for Christmas because last year there were duplicates." Are you freaking serious? I have been assigned a cookie? And peanut butter cookies? Those aren't even a Christmas cookie. I have an arsenal of Christmas cookies and you "assign" me peanut butter cookies? WTF?
• "We are starting the festivities at 1pm." Awesome, that's right at nap time. Didn't we learn our lesson at Thanksgiving?
• "Just get my kids a gift card." Ok, great idea, so this holiday is about gifts, but I am not even giving them a gift to open? Perfect. This is essentually just giving money away. How fun.

I suppose I could go on, but what's the point. This paints a picture already, does it not?

There are so many things I want to do. But I just don't have the motivation to do anything and no money to even do it. My goal here is to get all this off my chest and get going on some things, even if it's just cutting snowflakes out of copy paper.

Proud Momma

At the beginning of November, I posted a blog called Communication Breakdown. Jesse has made so much progress since that post! At Thanksgiving, he learned "sit down", go figure. He also learned help, stuck, milk (not mo), nigh-nigh, mine, and probably some other words that are not coming to mind right now. I am a very proud mother, he's doing so well!

Over the weekend something magical happened. Well, maybe not quite magical, but special. Jesse was playing with one of the tools we use to teach him to blow, a whistle, and he blew in it! I was so overwhelmed with joy that I even got teary, but didn't cry. He repeated this feat again by blowing in the harmonica! It's not a very strong blow, but it's a blow! He knows how to do it and he's getting results by the sounds the whistle and harmonica make.

This makes me realize how a simple task for some kids is a huge milestone for others. I wanted to tell the world... Jesse can blow! But to most people, that means nothing. Even people we know. I'd have to explain, so that just takes the fun and excitement out of it. I did share with a few people who would get it, and that was good enough for me.

Thanksgiving

First, a Paul update:
We went to the doctor on Wednesday. Basically the doctor told us there's nothing more he can do for Paul and changed his work status to light duty with restrictions. The doctor also referred him to a pain clinic. His employer should get notice sometime this week, then if they can accomodate his restrictions, Paul will get a certified letter with a position offer. I am anxious about this. I honestly don't know which way this will go. There are both positives and negetives in him going back to work and not going back to work.

I had a very negetive attitude about Thanksgiving this year. Specifically about how things would work out with Jesse, since dinner was scheduled in the middle of naptime and we were traveling an hour to get there. He did sleep in the car, which was what I'd hoped for. But I was also hoping it would be more than a half hour. It wasn't too bad if you set aside chasing him around like a little tornado and the other kids not wanting to play with him. We all got to eat dinner and skated out of there when he got out of hand. We were the first to leave, but at least it was after desert.

Saturday we planned another "Thanksgiving" with my family. Just Mom & Dad, Sis & BIL and their kids. It was nice and relaxing, timed after naps. Everything was going great, dinner got served, we were all enjoying ourselves, then Mom goes, "since we have you all here...", uh oh!

Mom announced that her and Dad are moving, likely to Alabama. They are putting their condo on the market, Mom's quitting her job and will start to get Social Security after her birthday, then Dad will get it after his birthday in October. The cost of living here is too high for them, my Mom is working a low paying job and my Dad is unemployed working odd jobs just to make ends meet. Their mortgage is their biggest expense and they can live elsewhere for much less money. Plus they want to do some "living" before they are unable to. I understand, but honestly, I am completely crushed. I feel like a baby, but in reality, I have never been this far away from my parents for more than a few weeks. I never went away to college, I never traveled for more than a couple weeks, neither have they. It's not like I'll still be able to just call my Dad and have him pop over. I guess I need to learn how to be even more independent from them, which isn't such a bad thing. They won't be around forever. I thought they'd wait until their grandkids were a little older. I had a special relationship with my Grandmother that most kids don't have. She lived with us, so she was always there. It breaks my heart knowing Jesse won't have that with my parents. For the record... I do not want them to live with me, but a few towns over is nice.

I'll get over it, just that initial shock is a tough one.

Hives!

Something I love right now: when Jesse holds my hand and not because I am making him.

Last week was rough. Sunday Jesse had a fever. Not sure why, it was up to 102. I did the standard protocol, gave him Tylenol, monitored his temp, gave him a popsicle, gave him a luke warm bath, kept him hydrated, etc. I was able to get his fever under control and it never spiked above 102. Monday he still had the fever, but it was close to 100. Tuesday he seemed much better so we resumed the daily routine. Wednesday when he got up, he was covered in hives! I wasn't sure if the hives and fever were at all related and with my family history of allergic reactions and hives, I wasn't going to mess around. Jesse stayed home with Paul and I headed to the office. On my way I called the pediatrician's office and made the appointment. They were able to get us in at 11am. Since the pediatrician's office is near my work, I met Paul and Jesse there. When we got in the room and took his clothes off, the hives were considerably worse than how I had seen them in the morning. The doctor took one look and said it was hives. He said because Jesse had a fever earlier in the week that the hives were likely viral. The one thing that confuses me, viral hives are itchy and I never saw his scratch. They were hot, so uncomfortable for him, but not itchy.

I am skeptical about this viral hives thing. It almost sounds like an explanation for unexplained hives. I did some online research and I could be wrong, but I am just not buying it. I mentioned above my family history with hives and I'll explain. My sister gets hives, in a big way. My sisters started around the age of 2. She was sick and the doctor gave her a prescription, then she got hives. The prescription for hives made them even worse. They assumed it was from the color or flavor of the medication. By the time my sister was 4, they determined it was red dye. Since then, my sister has been in and out of the hospital because of this allergy, she even wears a medical bracelet that indicates her allergy... yes, it's that severe. So all growing up we had to watch what my sister ate. We all learned to read ingredients and to simply avoid certain products. This was back in the 70's and 80's before there were dye-free options like we have available today.

When Jesse was running his fever I made sure to keep him well hydrated, thus running low on apple juice. He won't drink as much pain water as juice or something flavored, so I gave him some watered down tropical punch kool-aide on Tuesday night. I had made it for Paul to drink and figured what's the harm? I guess Wednesday morning I found out what the harm was when my son was covered in hives. Coincidence? not sure. I mentioned my sisters allergy to him and he told me allergies are not hereditary. But when I was thinking about this theory of mine, I realized that Jesse has probably never had anything artificially colored. I feed him mostly fresh fruits and vegetables, he doesn't eat candy or junk food, I even give him no-added color freeze pops (made with fruit juice by Snapple). I really want to test this theory. I'd rather know now if he has an allergy to artificial color, before it does become life-threatening.

After the doctor's appointment he went home, got a dose of Benedryl and took his nap. He slept for several hours. When he woke he still had the hives, not nearly as bad as earlier. The doctor did say it would take a few days for them to go away. Here is what it looked like Wednesday evening. There were some really bad ones on his butt, but I didn't feel it was appropriate to be posting pictures of my kids butt on the internet.

Here we are on Monday, there are a few stragglers left, but most of the hives have cleared up and he's back to himself again. Just in time for Thanksgiving.

Yesterday we went to a friends house to watch the game and to get Jesse's hair cut. He looks more grown up.

Something Blue Images

My friend Maggie is an awesome photographer, mother and friend. She took these photos of us back in October and I had to share! If you are looking for a photographer in the Chicagoland or Milwaukee area, contact her. She's good! http://www.somethingblueimages.com/

Communication Breakdown

We've had a rough week. Jesse is at a point where he knows what he wants, but has a hard time communicating it. He points and goes, "me, me, me!". I have about 15 seconds to figure out what he's pointing at before he starts freaking out and having a 20 minute temper tantrum. Good times.

He has a very small vocabulary. There are just a small handful of words he uses that we can understand. I'm sure he's saying more than we know, but we can't understand him. The problem here is that he can't make sounds that involve blowing. We are talking about words that start or contain the letters /b/, /d/, /p/, /c/. I am sure there are more, but those are the main ones. What Jesse does, is he replaces those letters for /m/ or /n/. Our dog Coda, he calls Nona. That one we figured out. A ball is a "mo" and a pumpkin is a "momo", milk is also "mo". So as you can see, this translating can get quite confusing, they are all much different words that get the same label.

There's a lot of frustration around our house right now due to the communication breakdown. Jesse is frustrated because we can't understand him and we are frustrated for the same reason. When one of these cleft related challenges arises, I can help but get sad about things. I always get this feeling of guilt because I realize that we wouldn't be going through this if he wasn't born with clefts. Yes and no. Some kids go through this even if they weren't born with clefts, but of course in a moment of frustration, I don't reason that way. I also begin to wonder if his palate surgery was a success. Yes, this surgeon closed the hole, but is it working properly? My son can't blow. I know this. Maybe it's something he needs to learn, or maybe it's the muscles in his soft palate not working right. I just don't know, and time will tell. For now, we will try to use sign language as much as we can.

His speech therapist is well aware of all this, she gives us excercises to do with him that encourage blowing and making the sounds he has troubles with. I gave him a harmonica the other day to see if he would magically blow in it, but no. He held it up to his mouth and hummed. It was kind of cute, but did not accomplish the goal I was hoping for. I try random things because of our experience with the honey bear straw. I gave that to him and within minutes he was sucking through the straw, which he had never done before. Blowing is harder to teach. I blow in his face, I blow cotton balls of my hand, I blow bubbles for him, but nothing....yet! I have not given up! We will keep trying.

Halloween Happenings

I know I am a bit late on the Halloween post, so be it. I finally managed to keep my promise to myself (and my family) to take more pictures, despite of not having a fully functional digicam.

We did the pumpkin patch thing. It was a blast. Plus this was really the first time we had Jesse at a crowded public place without being in a stroller. He did quite well, and so did we. We managed to not lose him, or even have a scare. Parenting win right there. Ha!

The weekend before Halloween we carved pumpkins. I love this part. Jesse participated a little, he drew on the pumpkin with his crayons. He had the most fun putting the candles in them (battery operated for safety).

We love Halloween Day. We make an event out of it so I took a half day. The trick or treaters started at 3 and Paul got dressed up as usual. Forgot to get his picture. I probably took one last year and he's basically the same every year. I got Jesse dressed up, he was a pirate! Arrr! He wanted nothing to do with the hat. We tried everything, distractions, showing how cool Daddy was in his hat, nope, he wouldn't have it. So my idea was to try a bandana. Pirates wear bandanas right? Will it at least make the rest of the outfit look like a pirates outfit? Yes! otherwise it was just a puffy shiney shirt with a vest.

We actually did some trick or treating. We hit the immediate neighbors around us, then headed over to Paul's parents. Not like Jesse eats candy, but he had fun acrrying around the bucket. Grandpa did share some of his peanut butter cup though.

How's that for getting more pictures!?