Goddess in Progress

Sign ‘em up

By Goddess in Progress · Comments (4) · May 7th, 2013

Sunday afternoon, I took the kids to a classmate’s birthday party. I was chatting with some of the other moms when someone asked where my kids would go for first grade next year, since they have only a month left in the final year of their Montessori program.

I hemmed and hawed and whined “I don’t know!” Our current town’s school system doesn’t have the greatest reputation, and while we’ve talked (for several years) about moving, it hasn’t happened yet – partly because of some weird job stuff, and mostly because we’re incredibly lazy and fear change. Then, after Daniel’s evaluation, we started wondering if we should consider sending the kids to private school. At which point we were pretty much laughed out of the room, because applications were due months ago.

But here it was, Sunday, May 5, and I had the sudden realization that I am an idiot. It’s freaking May. Their current school ends in a month. We need to have a damn plan for where they will go in September when first grade (!!) starts. I need to get over myself and register them at our neighborhood school.

So, today, that’s what I did.

What a weird feeling. I mean, the building is new and bright and the woman at the front desk was incredibly friendly and immediately knew the two kids on my block that already go to that school. It was a perfectly lovely first impression. But I’m standing there, and it’s such a… Real School. There’s older kids there, there’s 4th-grade artwork on the walls. There’s a gym and an art class and a cafeteria. I’ve been in a little bubble of denial in our teensy little preschool, it’s a little jarring to suddenly stand in a Real School.

The folder full of paperwork and residency verification was a little ridiculous. I don’t think I brought that much to the closing for my house. Utility bills and birth certificates and immunization records were all handed over. But then I felt like I had no control over the situation, no choice. They’re going to that school because that’s where a kid with our address goes to school. End of story. It’s hard to explain, but it was a strange feeling. Not to mention the slightly irrational fears of dropping my kids off at this unknown place and just hoping they’ll be safe and happy.

Oh man, I’m going to have some serious anxiety dreams in August, aren’t I?

Anyways, it’s done. We’re registered, they are all set to start first grade at our neighborhood school in the Fall. Maybe something will change before then, maybe we’ll get off our asses and sell this house. But if we don’t, then little local school, here we come.

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Categories : School

Boston, you’re my home

By Goddess in Progress · Comments (5) · April 15th, 2013

I wish I could fully describe, to non-Bostonians, what Marathon Monday means in the Boston area. It’s Patriots Day, a state holiday. All of the schools are closed, and many offices are, too. There’s Revolutionary War reenactments and parades all over Lexington and Concord and all of the other historic towns. The marathon starts at about 9 in the morning in Hopkinton, and you couldn’t miss the coverage if you tried. At places along the marathon route, crowds are five and ten deep. People take their kids to watch the runners, and the finish line is right in the middle of the city. There’s always an early home Red Sox game, which lets out in time for the baseball fans to walk the quarter mile to the marathon route and watch the thousands of runners finish the last couple of miles. It’s the most festive day of the year, it might as well be 4th of July. It’s not just a big race and some inconvenient street closings.

I was on my computer as the news of the explosions broke, a little before 3PM. I pretty much haven’t stopped shaking since. It was right around the four-hour mark of the marathon. The elite runners were long gone, the packs headed towards the finish were made up of people who were running for charity. Running as a partner for a blind man. Running to benefit kids with leukemia. I had friends who crossed the finish line 5, maybe 15 minutes before it happened. Friends who were watching from that exact spot two hours earlier. Friends who had been watching with their kids and had only just left. A friend who works a block away and was on lockdown in his office building for hours.

I am fine, my family is fine, it appears all of my friends are fine. But I am completely shaken. Injured kids taken to Children’s Hospital – I know that lobby too well. One of the fatalities – eight years old. I just can’t. I cannot.

I’m trying to focus on the immediate outpouring of good. In the split-second after the explosion, dozens of police officers and paramedics ran, without hesitation, towards the smoke. Runners who had just completed a grueling 26.2 miles kept going straight to Mass General, to donate blood. People all over my twitter feed were offering up spare bedrooms and food and wifi and phone chargers to stranded runners – so much generosity, Boston.com set up an open Google spreadsheet to help match up offers of space with people in need.

Mr. Rogers was right.

“Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.”

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Categories : Uncategorized

C’mon, get hungry

By Goddess in Progress · Comments (7) · April 9th, 2013

Welcome back to “101 things you never wanted to know about feeding therapy!”

We were stagnant for a while, in the feeding sphere. No real improvement in skills or interest. Not uncommon in the brutally slow world of teaching a kid how to eat, but frustrating nonetheless. We were due for a breakthrough, but how to get it?

Apparently, the answer is to try to teach Ellie what it means to be hungry. In two years, she has barely ever been hungry. She is fed an exact amount on an exact (ish) schedule. And it’s a completely passive process for her, she doesn’t have to do anything. She long-ago lost the connection between a rumbly tummy and any version of “eating.” So the question is, how do we get it back?

About a month ago, we cut 100 calories out of her daily ration of formula. And while the difference wasn’t striking, she suddenly seemed a little more attentive and willing at her feeding therapy appointments. We even progressed to little bites of soft food – bananas, sweet potatoes, bits of American cheese, as well as some favorite crunchy ones like graham crackers. But while those were good for new tastes and textures and oral-motor skill-building, I certainly wasn’t getting enough into her belly to make up for those 100 calories.

Enter: prescription medication. Our GI doctor wrote us a script for an appetite stimulant. (Which is apparently also an antihistamine, and also helps settle her GI tract after she gets sick? I don’t know, man, I just work here.) Though the first dose made her a little bit loopy, it seems to have had a near-immediate effect.

When I try to feed Ellie at home, I can never get as much into her as our feeding therapist can. I don’t have as much practice or as much patience, and sometimes I think Ellie is deliberately being a pill just because I’m her mom. So the best I can usually do is to get an ounce or so into her, with a lot of stress and cajoling and the need to rest afterwards.

This morning, with the help of an appetite stimulant and a generous helping of iPad games, I got the vast majority of a 4-oz container of yogurt into her. No fighting. No stress. Stopped after 20 minutes, and I could actually see the bottom of the cup. By my math, nearly 120 calories. And while that was the best I’ve ever done, I had three or four times last week that we did nearly as well.

Three cheers for modern medicine. Three cheers for getting a big enough volume and enough calories into her belly in a short enough period of time that she might actually start to connect “eat food” with “my tummy feels good.” Miracle of freaking miracles.

There are so, SO many other skills that we need to work on, it blows your mind to think about having to teach someone how to do it. Use your upper lip to get the food of the spoon. Use your tongue to move the food to your teeth so you can chew it. Tastes and textures galore. But this particular barrier, making the connection between hunger and food, feels like such a huge step that will allow more of it to happen. I think we’re getting there.

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Categories : Toddlers

She’s asking for it

By Goddess in Progress · Comments (8) · March 18th, 2013

The first time I had toddlers, one of the things I was always hearing people obsess over was potty training “readiness.” I wasn’t wringing my hands over it quite as much as some people I knew, but still, it was a big topic of conversation in the parents-of-two-year-olds set. Dry diapers in the morning, a certain body awareness, probably even some particular arrangement of tea leaves were all cited as being “ready” for potty training. I don’t think I paid much attention, I just up and decided to rip off the band-aid one weekend and went all boot-camp with Rebecca. Though it felt unbelievably stressful at the time, she picked it up quickly and my job was relatively easy. Daniel, well, that was an entirely different story. Were they showing me signs of “readiness?” Eh, who knows. Probably not. But they were two-and-a-half and heading towards preschool, so it was time and we did it.

There was less than a year that I was free from the world of diaper changes, and then came Ellie. Honestly? Diapers aren’t that bad. I don’t mind changing them, it’s not really that much of a hassle in the grand scheme of things. Sure, eventually I’ll have to potty-train Ellie, but I’ve been down this road before, and seriously, what’s the rush?

Yeah. Try telling that to her.

I swear, every third word out of her mouth is “potty,” “bathroom,” “diaper,” or “change.” For a long time, I’ve been sticking my fingers in my ears and singing LA LA LA LA because I just cannot add potty training to my list of daily responsibilities. And honestly, I think she originally thought “potty” meant “get down from the table,” because that’s what her brother and sister always did at dinner when they used that word.

But I think I underestimate this clever little girl of mine. I am too quick to assume she doesn’t get it. I’m starting to fear that, in this case, she actually might. She might be all but freaking BEGGING me to potty train her. And sure, yes, it would be lovely to cancel that particular Subscribe-and-Save order on Amazon. Having a diaper-free house would be quite something. But the process of getting there? Always having a change of clothes and a portable potty and having to DROP EVERYTHING as soon as she says the word? Oh, I could really do without that part.

But it’s getting to the point that I can’t deny it. I can’t pretend I don’t hear her saying it ALL THE TIME. It’s time to give it a go and see if she’s actually… ready. So now I have to go to Target and get a damn potty, and a few packages of cheap underwear that will be absurdly large on her teeny-tiny, maybe-she’ll-grow-into-size-2T-when-she’s-5 little bum.

Ugh. It’s a good thing she’s cute.

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Categories : Child Development, Milestones, Toddlers

Speak to me of the tooth fairy

By Goddess in Progress · Comments (15) · March 15th, 2013

Every now and then, something sneaks up on me with a reminder that I’m somebody’s Mother. Obviously, I’m here taking care of my three kids every single day, it’s not as though I forget. But I think it’s the milestone moments, especially the ones that I actually remember from my own childhood, that provide the extra jolt to my awareness. I can picture myself as the kid in that situation, I can picture my own mom, that image I have of what a MOM is. And now, here I am. The mom, not the kid.

Daniel has his first loose tooth. Two of them, in fact. The bottom middle pair are both wiggling, not surprising since those were the two that came in within a week of each other when he turned six months old. I have no idea how long it will take them to come out all the way, but either way, we have now entered the world of losing teeth. When did my kids get old enough for this? When did I?

Existential crisis aside, please talk to me about what you do about the tooth fairy in your house. I don’t intend to make a HUGE deal out of it, but I think it’s a fun tradition. And no, I will not be forking out more than a dollar per tooth. And no, I will not be KEEPING the teeth. Eew.

But tell me, friends, is there anything I should know before I ready my fairy wings?

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Categories : Milestones

Two

By Goddess in Progress · Comments (12) · February 27th, 2013

My little one, she is two.

Oh, poor third kid. There was no fanfare made about this birthday, whatsoever. Hell, I couldn’t even blog about it in a timely fashion – she turned two on Monday, and here it is, Wednesday. LAME. Coming at the tail end of the big kids’ school vacation week, and on the same day as M and I had a meeting to get the results of Daniel’s neuropsych evaluation, I didn’t even manage to make a cake. Thankfully, of course, she could care less. She’s too little to understand birthdays, and she doesn’t eat cake, anyways. She was happy enough to get serenaded with “Happy Birthday” about a hundred times.

She is a riot at two. As you can hear in the above video, one of her favorite new words is “funny!” Any time something makes her laugh, she scrunches up her shoulders and says “funny!” She has also, just in the last couple of days, started adding the word “I” to things. So instead of shrieking “did it!” when she accomplishes something, it’s “I did it!” (Or, in her actual prononciation, “hi did it!”) When she stumbles and falls, it’s “hi’m fine.”

Every time she sees my camera or my phone, she yells “cheese! picture!” But being a busy girl, I’m lucky to get one in ten to be even roughly in focus as she runs out of frame. And there are no recent pictures without some combination of messy hair, messy face, or a new bruise from running into lord-knows-what.

She loves to draw, and constantly requests I draw a kitty (a skill I needed to remember from when her brother and sister requested the same thing at her age). She is completely obsessed with the dog, a feeling that is far from mutual.

Oh, she can throw a screaming tantrum if she wants something and I won’t let her have it. That’s what two is for, right?

Happy birthday, funny girl. We’re so glad you’re here.

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Categories : Birthdays, Toddlers

What a day this has been

By Goddess in Progress · Comments (23) · February 13th, 2013

Ellie and I headed downtown after dropping the kids off this morning. We had an appointment at Children’s Hospital, which she is unfortunately old enough to recognize and remember.

Ellie’s feeding therapist wanted her to have a swallow study to make sure she isn’t aspirating when she swallows liquids. Her last study was when she was only one month old, at which point she was still having a small amount of aspiration of thin liquids. That day in March 2011 was the last time she took anywhere near a full feed by mouth. (Which she promptly puked up in spectacular fashion – aspiration was only one of our problems.)

Anyways, we have no reason to believe she is still aspirating now. She drinks small amounts of water from sippy cups without a problem and has never had pneumonia (a tell-tale sign of a kid who aspirates). But we wanted to be sure, so there we were.

Ellie did exactly as I thought she would. She was slightly anxious in the waiting room, but completely lost her mind as soon as we were brought down to the radiology suite. She screamed like she was being stabbed, and was only momentarily calmed by iPads, bubbles, and songs. But in the end, I got her to calm down enough to take a few sips from her cup (before she realized the barium was nasty), and they saw five or six successful swallows.

While I was pretty sure this was going to be the outcome, it feels really good to have this particular box checked off for the time being. Our issues with swallowing and eating are far from over, but at least for now I can definitively say “she does not aspirate.” Huzzah.

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE.

At 2:30, Ellie had her usual physical therapy appointment. For the vast majority of her two years, we have had PT with our beloved Janet every week. We’ve had ups and downs and plateaus, but it seemed like once she started crawling, it has been a really steady improvement.

This afternoon, we watched her all-but-run from activity to activity. She scooted, she climbed, she squatted, she walked up and down stairs (with help). Give her two hands to hold and she can jump and clear both feet off the ground.

We had started to spread our appointments out to every two or three weeks, and talked about going to once a month. But as we watched this crazy almost-two-year-old careen around the room, we were hard pressed to say why. Does she have totally typical agility, balance, as strength for a two-year-old? Not quite. But nothing she needs to work on is going to take anything other than time and practice. Not specific exercises and tasks, just running around like the little kid she is.

Ellie graduated from physical therapy today.

Sure, if she stalls in her development or I get worried about something, we can always go back. But as of right now, we are done with PT.

When you have a kid with a big asterisk next to her name like Ellie, seeing so many doctors and specialists, the numbers just seem to multiply. Someone always wants to suggest you see ANOTHER doctor. Audiology! Endocrine! Is there any department you haven’t visited yet? Get in there! I’ve started a Google Doc to keep track of everyone because I can no longer remember all of their names.

So, to be able to cross one or two things off of the list, or at least tuck them away on a shelf for the time being, is such a lovely turn of events that I burst into tears on the way home.

Comments (23)

Categories : Hospital, Toddlers

At least it was justified

By Goddess in Progress · Comments (1) · February 10th, 2013

The one thing I kept saying, after rebooking our flight home, was that this storm had better be pretty freaking spectacular. If I had come home and the storm had gone out to sea and only given us a couple of inches, I was gonna be PISSED.

Yeah. Not so much.

Schools were closed on Friday, despite the fact that the snow didn’t start to fall until 10AM and at sunset we only had maybe 3 inches. But the storm was only getting started. Public transportation in Boston was shut down at 3:30PM. The governor issued an emergency ban on road travel starting at 4PM. After nightfall, the snow fell heavier and the winds got stronger. By Saturday morning, my yard had a solid 20 inches, with windblown drifts even deeper. It was, for reference, approximately one Ellie deep.

Saturday was still windy and frigid, but Sunday was sunny and not nearly as cold. The roads were narrow and a little slippery, but plowed and passable and the travel ban had been lifted. My sister-in-law and her husband escaped the city for a visit and built a little sledding hill in the yard for the kids. They were out there for ages, enjoying the snow.

When we don’t have to be anywhere, and we don’t lose power, I actually love a big snowstorm. I enjoy winter, I don’t mind the cold. Of course, I also wasn’t the one who had to dig us out…

All in all, though, a successful ride through the blizzard for us. Now, if they would just quit canceling school…

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Categories : Family, Home

Eff you, Nemo

By Goddess in Progress · Comments (5) · February 8th, 2013

I should be in Disney World right now. The most magical goddamn place on earth. Instead, I am in my drafty house, filling up the gas tank for the snowblower, hunkering down for a freaking blizzard.

So, hi! How are you?

We were in Disney World this week. We left last Saturday. It had been planned for months – a big family trip courtesy of my dad, fifteen or sixteen of us in all. We didn’t tell the kids until we were on the bus to the resort. My dad and brother had conference stuff going on the first few days, but that was fine. We had M’s parents drive up from South Florida to babysit Ellie so that he and I could go nuts in the parks with the kids. And boy, did we. Teacups. Characters. Freaking Jedi Academy.

My in-laws left Tuesday night, so Wednesday onward was all set for Big Group Family Time. Between the four of us siblings, we live in four different states, so together time is rare. But good times were to be had by all. A fancy private breakfast with none other than Cinderella herself. Rides with cousins for hours. Happy grandparents.

And then, on the way back to our hotel after a long, fun day, I started to hear about some snow forecast for Boston. A blizzard. Two feet of snow between Friday and Saturday. When was our return flight scheduled? Saturday afternoon.

I quickly realized that there was no earthly way we were going to make it home on Saturday. And that I needed to call and reschedule ASAP instead of getting stuck at the airport with three kids. And while extra days at Disney sound nice, the logistics of being away an extra 3-4 days just seemed like too much. Not to mention the fact that, once we did get home, we’d never get into our driveway with two feet of snow in it. As much as it sucks, we decided we had to leave early. I called the airline to re-book us on a Thursday night flight, so we could get at least one more morning in the parks to do a final hurrah.

In the 30 minutes I was on the phone, everything was booked. My only option, sitting there at 5pm on Wednesday, was 8:15am on Thursday.

I made the reservation change and promptly burst into tears. I was upset at having to leave early, having to abruptly drop everything and go, not knowing that afternoon was our last day. I felt awful for my dad, who was so excited to have us all together and had been looking forward to it for ages. I felt shitty for all of the times I said “not now” in the gift shops, fully intending to go souvenir shopping later in the week. All of a sudden, we had about two hours before bedtime and then a 5:00am wake-up call to get to the airport.

Just so we could be home in time for a freaking blizzard, that they have so helpfully named Nemo. (WTF is up with naming winter storms, now?)

But my pity party needs to be done. My family understood what we had to do, they knew it was the right decision. And as bummed as I am to miss out on more days, we thankfully can say that we milked every little bit out of the ones we had, and I am hard-pressed to think of something we wanted to do that we didn’t make happen. It was a huge bummer to end it like that, and I hate that we didn’t get more time with my dad, but I can’t let that set the tone for what was otherwise a great trip. There was wonder and excitement, there was family time big and small. There was magic. Totally worth it.

Comments (5)

Categories : Family, Travel

That’s more like it

By Goddess in Progress · Comments (11) · January 24th, 2013

Five months into Kindergarten, and Daniel is still struggling. Not with the concepts – he’ll happily talk your ear off about planets and how many bones are in your body, and his reading-writing-arithmetic is just peachy. No, it’s still the focus and distractibility that is keeping him from actually completing his tasks. So after our disastrous first attempt at an evaluation, I took another friend’s recommendation and set us up with a different office.

Oh, what a difference.

As you may recall, the first try involved a nurse practitioner who offered us a drug prescription within 20 minutes. This time? Yeah, a little different. We have FOUR appointments set up. Yesterday was our intake interview – mostly me answering a lot of questions while Daniel played with some toys in the office. It lasted an hour, and I felt like her questions and observations really started to get a sense of who my son is and what some of his strengths and weaknesses are. The next two are both two-hour testing/evaluation sessions one-on-one with Daniel, and the fourth is a parent meeting to discuss the findings and make recommendations. And all of this is with a neuropsychologist.

I feel much better about this already. I felt like the psychologist was really listening to me and understanding what I’m looking for. I got the sense that her focus would be to really find out what makes Daniel tick, and then how best to teach skills and strategies for him to manage his distractibility and for us to be able to parent him the best we can. Does that necessarily rule out some medical intervention? I’m sure not. But she has already given me the feeling that, whatever her recommendations may be at the end of this, they will be a lot more grounded in who my son really is and what he needs.