What a Life!

Ben, modeling the Calvin Klein Jeans shirt, vest, and corduroy pants…sent to him by his rich aunt and uncle back East.

It’s a great outfit – classy and very comfortable. I have no idea where I might find such a thing around here. Quite honestly, I would rather receive one classy outfit like this as a gift than half a dozen outfits of the kind they have where I shop. Vanity…vanity…

One of the things about being a parent is that everyone seems to feel free to harp on you for what you should be doing. Seems. I, being the one who takes everything to seriously, have a lot of mommy guilt over all these things I’ve been told but disagree with.

Case in point? People have been harping on me to teach Ben his alphabet since he was barely starting to talk.

MIL bought him that LeapFrog thing. Ironically, it’s the only toy she’s bought that I have ever returned. I have this thing with battery operated toys that say the same thing over and over and over and over and over again exactly the same way. She gave it to him for his birthday, and if you had any ideas how many times we heard the letter “A” that afternoon…which I can still recite in the exact same tone…you would understand my complete disdain for such things. Yes, I returned it. Even my sister-in-law says she had questioned my “no batteries” rule until the afternoon we all had to listen to the LeapFrog say the letter “A” over and over again – now she’s a firm believer.

Then when MIL would watch Ben, we would go to pick him up and she would try to show us how he’d learned his letters or numbers or something. Again, he barely knew how to talk, and when she tried to get him to show us or even point to them when she said them, he didn’t know any of them at all. But she’d been drilling him on them while we were gone. I mean, for goodness sake, let him be himself! He’ll be drilled enough when he gets to school – there is no need to do that type of things during his “free years.”

My own mother even made the comment once that I needed to make sure Ben knew his alphabet or he’d be embarrassed when he went to kindergarten. He was two, and he’ll probably go to kindergarten when he’s five. I told my mother he had three years to learn them and that we would teach him when he showed interest in them. [I tell my mother what I think, at least. Need to work on that with other people.]

He learned how to count to ten first because we had a couple of counting books. He also learned his colors, thanks to Freight Train. For a while there, he even referred to yellow things as “yellow hopper car” or orange things as “orange tank car” when we’d point to things outside the book and ask him what color they were.

Now he’s finally in the last month started showing interest in the alphabet. [See, I told you he would before he got to kindergarten.] He learned the alphabet song first. I swear we’ve been singing it a dozen times a day. Initially his version had amusing inventions such as H-I-Jacob. He still gets confused a little with the part at the end where the melody repeats: Q-R-S-T-U-V and W-X-Y-and-Z. He’ll do Q-R-S-Y-and-Z twice or variations like that. But now he’s getting it pretty good most of the time.

We’ve even moved on to the next step. He has his Curious George book with a page for every letter of the alphabet. He doesn’t pay much attention to that book, but he goes around the house naming things – window, clock, radio, etc. – and saying things like “C is for clock.”

Most of the time, which letter goes with an object is only a guess, but he’s starting to use the right letter more often. It’s called repitition. And when they’re interested in something, they pay attention.

An amusing side note…he doesn’t pronounce L’s or R’s very clearly. So things like “clock” sound like something else. Or imagine him saying “Aunt Traci and Uncle Lou” without R’s or L’s. I am sure a speech therapist would be alarmed and recommend some serious therapy, but for now, we simply find it amusing. I need to catch some of it on our DVD-recorder. That and a rendition of Old MacDonald Had a Farm which we hear over and over every day. Did you know that Old MacDonald had a trash truck on his farm? Guess what it sounds like? Tsss (think: sound of air brakes being released).

I really need to get some serious armour so I don’t take the comments from the peanut gallery so seriously. Theoretically, I should have grown some with the experiences with my first child that shall serve me with the second. Every child is different, however. I am sure Joey will probably talk early and eat things he shouldn’t rather than refusing to eat things he should. It’ll be a whole new set of “problems” that I know nothing about until, given the time he needs, he figures them out himself.

[Sigh]

I’m sitting down to pay bills (except that I’m blogging instead). Thursday is the day I usually reconcile our accounts and pay any bills that have rolled in.

Today, I have a pan of dark chocolate brownies sitting next to me as I do the bills. I’m reconciling the insurance statements with the bills we’ve received so far for Joey’s hospitization in December.

Diagnosis: Pyloric stenosis

Hospital: $7540.54
No separate charge for going to the ER. Fee is based on diagnosis only, I believe.

Attending physician: $235
He told us to go to the hospital and then visited us every day

ER physician: $250
Coordinated our care for diagnosis

Radiologist: $118 and $48
Read the x-ray and ultrasound finalizing diagnosis

Surgeon consult: $218

Primary surgeon: $1380

Assisting surgeon: $1380

Anesthesiologist: $780

Follow-up office visit: $76

Grand total: $12,025.54

Number of brownies eaten while adding this up: 2

Of course, these amounts are the billed charges, not the eligible charges as per our insurance. Then our percentage of the eligible charges is less than the portion that the insurance is paying.

Still, it’s a good thing Christmas is a long ways away because there isn’t going to be much extra cash floating around our house for a while (not that there ever is).

Pictures documenting the experience:

At the hospital

The scar

I discovered the other day that Joey has learned a new trick. Instead of just flailing when he’s on his tummy, he’s learned how to prop himself up on his arms and look around. See?

Isn’t he cute?

My baby’s growing up. [sob]

I took that picture of him yesterday, and then went back to the bedroom to put clothes on him. (Yes, he wears clothes.) When I came back out, I found Ben taking pictures of his Mr. Bunny (who is his counterpart to Joey) just like I had been taking pictures of Joey.

He even talked to Mr. Bunny like I’d been talking to Joey and made clicking sounds just like the camera every time he took a “picture.”

Later on in the day, I had Joey on the floor enjoying the scenery from that viewpoint, and Ben decided to read him a story. Curious George Learns the Alphabet, in fact. The one and only alphabet book where the letter at the top of every page is a “B”…at least according to Ben.

Our sweet Ben has had eating “issues” ever since he started solids. It took forever before he would accept them (we finally had to force them on him), and then he has been very particular about texture ever since.

He didn’t meet the two year requirement of 50 words and 2-word sentences that speech therapists tout as an absolute minimum. We did have him evaluated by a family friend at one point, and she told us that he needed more than the school system would be able to offer via early intervention. In fact, she told us we needed to take him to a clinic that had speech, occupational and physical therapists in order to help him effectively.

Our family doctor, on the other hand, wasn’t worried about it. We tried the theory that perhaps his tonsils were causing the overactive gag reflex which seemed to be the issue with solids. He told us he would be happy to refer us if we wished, but he has thirteen children – yes, thirteen – and the one with the smallest tonsils had the strongest gag reflex so he didn’t think it was related. So we dropped that.

I’ve had people suggest he might have a form of autism that involves sensitivity to textures, especially since he also supposedly had a speech delay. I’ve read up some on autism. First of all, it used to be 1 in 10,000 children that were affected; now the most recent stat I saw was 1 in 166. At the same time, for every symptom of autism that they give, there is someone in my family or Steve’s who has that same odd behavior. Don’t get me wrong – I believe every case needs to be looked at individually, but my impression is that autism is way over-diagnosed. Just because you have a name for some odd behavior doesn’t mean that a child needs therapy. In a lot of ways, autism is normal behavior taken to the extreme. I don’t think Ben does any of those behaviors enough to justify such a diagnosis, and people whom I’ve discussed this with who know Ben personally agree.

But still, we couldn’t get Ben to eat anything that wasn’t the consistency of mashed potatoes or thereabouts. He feeds himself, and he never rejects a food based on taste. He eats all sorts of things that you hear stories all the time about kids refusing to touch. At the same time, he picks the pieces of fruit out of his yogurt and refuses to eat them. If he’s feeding himself, he sorts them out; if one inadvertantly gets in his mouth, he spits it out. You can mix things like cubed beets or peas or even green beans in mashed potatoes, and he’ll eat them just fine; give them to him straight (without the mashed potatoes), and he won’t have anything to do with them.

A week or so ago I was grating some parmesean cheese to serve with pasta. Ben came over to see what I was doing, and I snitched a little off the cutting board. Then I pushed a tiny piece over to him and told him to snitch it just like mommy. He took it off the cutting board – one strand of finely grated fresh parmesean – and put it in his mouth. Really.

I kept grating and snitching, and he kept taking more and more. First it was longer strands, then it was multiple strands. It was amazing! He’s come over before when I was cutting things up and offered some to him, but he’s always just put his fingers up to his mouth with the food in them and faked that he was eating it – he wouldn’t actually put anything in his mouth. This time, he was actually putting it in his mouth and eating it.

I offer you this picture (unedited, of course) as proof:

A couple days later we did the same thing with grated cheddar, grated on a regular grater (not the fine one). He got cheese all over the floor, but he managed to eat quite a bit of grated cheddar as well.

Then I decided to buy some bananas. I started by slicing the banana and cutting each slice into quarters and then snitching it from the cutting board and inviting him to do the same. I cut some more slices only in half…followed by intact slices of banana. He was eating them all just fine.

Then I got really brave – I took a half of banana, handed it to him completely intact (peeled, of course), and told him to stick it in his mouth just like he does with his toys. I showed him how to bite it off and told him to do the same.

He did it.

Seriously.

Here’s the picture to prove it (again, unedited, of course):

We went to the doctor last week for a follow-up on Ben’s ear infection. I told him how Ben was eating bananas and how they were now on his favorite list of foods that he specifically requested.

I told him it just went to prove that he was perfectly capable of eating solids, but just like toddlers who will eat a taco if it’s open but not if it was folded, it was just in his head.

The doctor looked at me and said, “It’s always just in their heads.”

And I know it’s not good to snitch while you’re cooking – it can lead to weight issues and all sorts of things. God knows I will be to blame if Ben needs a stomach reduction surgery someday! But for now, snitching is a good thing. Otherwise, we would still be worried about whether Ben would ever take food and put it in his mouth like every other child his age.

Incidentally, he talks just fine now too. You wouldn’t believe all the things he has to say. He “caught up” in terms of speech development, and we never took him to a speech therapist. Like I said, every child is different and every case needs to be evaluated individually, but just because there is a therapist who treats a certain “odd” behavior doesn’t mean a child needs to have therapy. I think it’s great that we have therapists who can treat children who have problems and would be treated badly on account of being different, but at the same time, I think we need to be careful in how we define “different.” Perhaps we as a society need therapy in order to learn to be more accepting of variations between individuals. Perhaps.

Sleeping Baby
Joey’s waking up after only 45 minutes may be more related to only needing 16 hours of sleep a day – since he gets 12 hours at night, three or four 45 minute naps may be all he needs. Yesterday there was never any spit-up that seemed to be the cause of him waking. I nurse him to sleep for naps, but only for a couple minutes since it seems to do the trick very quickly. Real interruptions that may have caused early awakening were as follows:

Take 1 – Ben wanted to look out the window next to Joey’s crib and decided to move the crib into the middle of the room so he could have more space to enjoy the entire window. Yes, the crib wheels have locks on them…but when you “lock” them, they still roll – they just make clicking noises while they roll instead of rolling quietly.

Take 2 – Ben decided the door to the bedroom Joey was sleeping in needed to be closed…tight. So he closed it without turning the knob – bang. Then he rattled it a little to show me that it was closed. Since our house was built in 1950, the door is loose enough to bang really good when you do that. Yeah.

Regarding the whole idea of getting him to sleep at 6:30 p.m….part of the reason why is so I can leave the house and work my Mary Kay business. However, I’m thinking perhaps I’ll just take Joey with me…even when I’m holding sales appointments. None of them are so long that he will need to eat or have his diaper changed if I nurse and change him immediately before I leave. When he’s in the sling, he’s happy (quiet) or asleep. It’s not like I’m trying to tend to a fussy baby while trying to show a product to a customer – that would not work.

It may be considered “unprofessional” to take one’s baby along to sales appointments, but I am running my own business, and if it’s worth it to me to take my baby even if that means risking the loss of a few potential customers, that’s my gamble to take. I think moms should be able to take their babies with them more, and that if more people took their babies along and proved that it could be done without distraction, more people might be able to do it…and more babies might be with their mommies. Yes, I am probably a pioneer on this, but I have heard of other mothers who have taken their children to work with them in various situations and it’s worked out splendidly. Nuf said.

Jogging Stroller
Now I’m seriously eyeing either this stroller or this stroller which happens to be on sale. I know I said I wanted a swivel wheel, which these don’t have. A swivel wheel is considered “dangerous” if you’re jogging or running. Since I’m a slow, 15+ minute walker, I don’t think those issues would apply to me. I do get so tired of steering, but these strollers have a couple of things the other don’t have. Namely…

150 lb capacity The others I was looking at only had a 100 lb capacity – and that is half in each seat, not 75 lb in one seat and 25 lb in the other. With the larger capacity, I would get at least three years use out of it, which would certainly last until Ben is in school.

Hand break Not a major issue as we live in the Great Plains, but there are some nice slopes that go for a block or more where a hand break might come in handy with the weight of two healthy boys.

If I get the stroller now, I would probably get the one on sale. That would save me $70. I would also need to consider how I’m going to keep Joey warm. Would a stack of blankets do the trick or do I need a snowsuit? I might be able to find one on clearance, but it would still cost money. If I wait, I think I will get the first one, which may be the only one available anyway when I’m ready to buy.

Book Report
I started reading Tender Is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald a couple weeks ago. I got about sixty pages into and decided that the story line was not interesting to me. It might have been interesting to me when I bought the book, but I really do not find it intriguing now.

Then I picked up The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood. I read a few pages and quit reading this one for the same reason – not a story line I’m interested in reading right now.

If I was reading a book a week or something, I would probably read both books. But since I am reading one book a month which is only twleve books per year, I want to spend my time on books I’m really interested in reading.

So…Oprah announced here new book club book – The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autobiography by Sidney Portier. I haven’t read all of her book club selections as they start to sound the same after a while. Some are more challenging to read than others (Faulkner?). This one seems to be off the beaten path as well as something I would find very interesting at this point in my life. I’m very much enjoying it thus far – even savoring it as I read a few pages every night. At this point I would call it highly recommended.

TV upstairs
I mentioned yesterday that I am contemplating removing the tv upstairs and storing it in our spare room. Steve has said more than once that he wouldn’t care if there wouldn’t be a tv up there, but he still watches it all the time. I even mentioned it again yesterday and he reiterated that he wouldn’t care if we didn’t have one up there. Here are some more reasons why I’m thinking no tv in our living/dining room area might be a good thing.

Family Dinner Since we wouldn’t be tempted to sit out the couch and watch tv while we eat, we might eat dinner together at the table as a family more often. As it stands, we usually only do that when we’re eating food that doesn’t lend itself to couch-eating, like steak that needs to be cut with a steak knife.

Quiet Time In the evenings, I like to unwind by knitting and listening to classical music on public radio. Last night, Steve came upstairs and turned on the basketball game. I sat there and wasn’t able to relax (don’t ask me how he is able to relax while surfing channels). When I finally went to bed, it took me longer than usual to get to sleep. I hate that. If it were up to me, we would have a no-tv-after-9:00 p.m. rule. Removing the tv would give me space I need to relax and unwind, and that is so good for my mental health. If Steve really wants to check out the game, he can do so downstairs. Watching tv together isn’t really “quality time” anyway.

Easier Evenings My favorite show which I watch almost every day is Special Report with Brit Hume on the Fox News Channel. Politics is kind of my version of a soap opera that I like to follow. At our house, that show is on between 5:00 and 6:00, which is while I’m making supper and Steve is arriving home, etc. so I kind of “watch” it while I’m doing other things. If I taped it and watched it the next morning, I would see more of it and spend less time on it at the same time (because I would skip the ads). This would actually be the key reason why I have not removed the tv up until this point, but now I’m thinking I might be happier with an alternate arrangement anyway.

Ultimately, I can always bring the tv back upstairs if I decide this is a bad idea. I could even bring it upstairs just when I want to watch the NASCAR race on the weekends.

I think the only question that remains is whether I want to carry it downstairs myself or if I want to ask Steve to do it.

Eye Candy
Here is a picture I took of Joey this weekend. If only I had some of that magic software that can be used to erase backgrounds, this would be a great shot.