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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.

Comments (8)

Categories : Child Development, Milestones, Toddlers

Tags : potty training

Let’s change everything

By Goddess in Progress · Comments (4)· November 26th, 2012

Hooray for progress.

And yet, it makes everything

more complicated.

Ellie has made, by our standards, some really great progress in the last few months with our new feeding therapist. Back in August, she was just barely starting to show interest in bringing foods anywhere near her mouth. Now, if she’s in a good mood (and adequately entertained with toys, and the adult in question is feeling particularly persistent), we can get anywhere from 1 to 3 ounces of actual food into her. I’m talking yogurt and thicker baby food purees, not a hamburger, but still. It’s a big step forward.

But now, it’s time to get serious. Up to this point, a lot of what we’ve been doing has been just experimenting with flavors and textures and the simple sensation of having something in her mouth. In a sense, no pressure. Just playing around. But now that she will actually consume a measurable amount of food by mouth, we need to start pushing to see what she’s capable of.

The first order of business is to reduce her daily intake of formula. Not just so that she won’t be over-fed with the additional calories of yogurt, but in the hopes of getting her to experience real hunger for the first time since she was a newborn, further hoping that it will motivate her to eat more readily. But it’s not just an even reduction across the board – if we are taking 100 calories of formula away, we’re going to take most or all of that away from the feeding prior to any attempt at feeding her by mouth. Again, in the hopes that she’d get good and hungry. That adds an element of planning ahead that is a little tricky in our current modus operandi, but OK.

In the meantime, the nutritionist wants us to switch to a different type of formula now that she’s older. That’s fine, but the new formula (really, just Pediasure) is much more calorically dense than the old one. Which means she requires a smaller volume to get the same number of calories per day. That’s also fine, except that it means formula intake alone is no longer enough to keep her adequately hydrated, so I’ll also have to give her supplemental water – through the tube, because she doesn’t really drink it yet. Yet another thing to keep track of.

Oh, and the actual “feeding” part of feeding therapy is no walk in the park, believe me. It’s incredibly slow and enormously frustrating for me. Ellie doesn’t much love it, and some days she’s especially toddler-rific and just ain’t having it. It requires a lot of distraction and entertainment and coaxing, and even then, I can never manage to get as much into her as the feeding therapist does. So, you know, no pressure to get those calories into her that you’re taking away from her formula or anything.

I said to M, this is like potty training on a much larger scale. Yeah, it’s nicer and easier to have a potty-trained kid than to have one in diapers. But the PROCESS of getting from point A to point B… wow, does that suck, and makes you (temporarily) wistful for the easy days of diapers. Same thing here, but it’s going to be a lot harder and take a hell of a lot longer. Yes, obviously I want Ellie to get to the point of being able to eat and drink everything she needs without the tube. But the fact is, the current usage of the tube is actually pretty easy. We’ve got it figured out, it fits into our lives. This in-between, in-progress phase? Exciting and all, but holy crap is it going to suck for a while.

(And, by “a while,” I’m guessing probably two years, if all goes well. In case you were wondering what kind of pace we’re talking about, here.)

I’m still waiting to get the new formula from our medical supply place. Nothing about that is ever easy – the complex-care pediatrician has to check the nutritionist’s notes and call in the “prescription” before I can order a month’s worth. But once it’s here, I think I will literally have to write out our daily feeding regime and have that thing laminated and posted in the kitchen. No more auto-pilot for me.

Comments (4)

Categories : Child Development, Feeding, Toddlers

Tags : feeding therapy, g-tube, haiku

Crystal Ball

By Goddess in Progress · Comments (11)· November 2nd, 2012

I wish I had known

back then, in the hospital

that this day would come

I’ve said it before, but one of the hardest parts of Ellie’s first few months was the not knowing. Vague test results, odd symptoms and characteristics, and a general sense of “we don’t know how this will impact her life, her development, anything.”

Imagine the relief I would have felt, in March of 2011, if someone had been able to tell me that Ellie would walk. And not just “eventually,” but well before she turned two. Oh sure, walking at 20 months is still considered a delay. But I’ve known plenty of late walkers, later than Ellie.

Imagine the relief I would have felt if someone had been able to tell me that Ellie would talk. That, at 20 months, she’d have easily 20+ words. Is she speaking in two-word combos yet? Nah. But again, I’ve known plenty of kids with fewer words than Ellie at this age.

There is no crystal ball, of course. I had to just wait and see. I don’t know what the next 20 months will hold for any of my kids, much less Ellie. And I know that our work is far from over in terms of working with Ellie on all kinds of skills.

But damn, walking and talking feel like hitting the jackpot.

Comments (11)

Categories : Child Development

Tags : developmental delays, Gross motor, haiku, language development, talking, walking

Hide your valuables

By Goddess in Progress · Comments (18)· April 12th, 2012

Mark it. At exactly thirteen-and-a-half months, Ellie has started crawling.

Just like that, she figured it out. Milestones like these always amaze me – one minute she can’t crawl, the next minute she can. Hell, when she was a newborn in the hospital, a significant part of me wondered if she would ever be able to crawl, period. And now, she can.

Of course, nothing really happens that suddenly. She’d been up on her knees and rocking for the last two months. She’s been pushing herself backwards (and getting stuck under furniture) for a while.

In the last week or two, she had very occasionally begun to do a sort of inchworm/commando crawl. Once or twice a day, she managed to propel herself forward by an inch or two. I thought about trying to get it on video, but it was so infrequent and so short-lived (she would tire out quickly), I never managed it.

Yesterday, her physical therapist was working with her and trying to encourage a real crawl. With just the barest of support, she suddenly took two or three “steps” forward and I almost fainted.

Later that night, she did it again. And again.

This morning, catching it on video was no problem at all.

And then, the realization hits: our house is not even remotely childproofed anymore.

GOTTA GO.

Comments (18)

Categories : Child Development, Toddlers

Tags : crawling, developmental delays, Gross motor, video

Spring Snapshot – Eleanor

By Goddess in Progress · Comments (5)· April 2nd, 2012

Ellie is so happy, so much of the time, it’s practically mind-boggling.

Seriously, the kid is getting eight new teeth all at once, and is only occasionally cranky. One nap instead of two? No biggie. Getting dragged around to one errand/doctor’s appointment/big-kid activity after another? Whatevs! Just happy to be here! Oh sure, she eventually reaches her limit. But she is really so easy-going, I can’t believe how lucky we are.

So, what is she up to these days? She has started playing peek-a-boo and clapping, and now claps for herself when she plays peek-a-boo. While I wouldn’t say she yet has any discrete words, she’s very vocal and expressive. Lots of variation in tone and pitch and volume, different consonant sounds, different vowel sounds. Seems pretty good to me on the language-development front for a 13-month-old who otherwise has some fairly notable developmental delays.

In the motor skills department, she’s still probably closer to a 6-to-9-month-old than a one-year-old, but she’s making really nice progress on her own schedule. She can support herself standing, either holding on to me or to a bench or something. She isn’t super steady, but getting more so every day. She has been able to get herself up from belly to sitting for a little while, but it involves this crazy legs-in-the-splits maneuver that her physical therapist HATES. Entirely too flexible in those hips, I guess. Anyways, we’ve been trying to encourage a more graceful and less-cringe-inducing bent-knee version. She has finally figured it out with the help of her sleep sack (since she can’t get into the splits in the sack), and with this fun new skill, has decided her afternoon nap is for suckers. Great.

She is getting closer and closer to crawling. When on her belly, she can get up on her knees and rock back and forth. She pivots around, she scoots backwards, she reaches and rolls. And just the other day, for the first time, I saw her just barely inch forward. In the meantime, I’m constantly pulling her out from under a bench or a chair.

Ellie is still fed 100% by her G-tube. The leap forward she had made back in January has tapered off and taken a step back. While she no longer gags every time something is near her mouth, she has lost interest in actually trying baby food. Basically, she has decided she’s a toddler and just doesn’t feel like it. Awesome.

There are times when I feel badly for Ellie, being the youngest of three. The older kids determine so much of what we do each day, with school pick-up and drop-off, activities, habits, and opinions. She doesn’t have the classes and baby-centered outings and playdates that her brother and sister did at this age. She just has to fit into the pre-existing machine.

On the other hand, she gets a lot more one-on-one attention than the older kids ever got. It’s just me and her for a few hours every day. The big kids are relatively self-sufficient, while she’s cute and cuddly and needs to be picked up to go anywhere and DOESN’T TALK BACK (yet). Plus, she’s got these two goofballs who will do literally anything to make her laugh. Yeah, it’s not so rough being Ellie.

Comments (5)

Categories : Behavior, Child Development, Infants, Toddlers

Eleven months

By Goddess in Progress · Comments (12)· January 25th, 2012

Eleven months. Seriously. I’m not kidding. One month shy of a whole year.

I’m going to say this now so that I’m not a party pooper on her actual birthday: it really doesn’t feel like it should be so close. And not just in the usual “time flies” way, though that’s always true. I just have such a disconnect between Ellie, the little person in my life, and the day that this baby was born. Obviously I remember it very clearly. But the ten weeks that followed were so surreal, my memory of March and April of 2011 will always be warped. She didn’t even come home until May. So to think of celebrating in the middle of winter is kind of strange. Plus, developmentally-speaking, she’s not doing the kinds of things that other nearly-one-year-olds are doing. I don’t feel like I have an almost-toddler on my hands, the way I would otherwise expect of an 11-month-old.

THAT SAID…

The upside of being told in the hospital that your baby could potentially have very significant developmental delays and perhaps permanent deficits? Every time she makes a new leap forward, every time she does something sort-of-normal, it’s cause for celebration. (Remember that line from Say Anything…? “Start out depressed and then everything is a pleasant surprise.”) When we were still in the hospital, and they suggested that there may be gross motor issues of TOTALLY UNKNOWN severity, I silently wondered things like, “maybe we should move to a one-story house in case she never walks and needs to be in a wheelchair.” Had I voiced that thought, I can tell you the doctors would have just looked at me and shrugged. They had no way of knowing which way it would go, either.

But my girl? My girl wants to be on the move.

Sitting up and rolling over are old news, she’s a total pro. While she can’t yet get herself up to a sit, she can go from sitting down to her belly with increasing speed, purpose, and grace. While on her belly, she now uses her arms to pivot around, and sometimes ends up pushing herself backwards until her legs are stuck under the couch. Between the pivots and the rolling, I can no longer assume she’s going to be right where I left her. That photo up there? I put her down on the quilt in the foreground, sitting up. She managed to get herself over to the TV somehow. It ain’t fast, but she moves.

In physical therapy, we’re working hard on getting more strength in her legs, hips, shoulders, and arms in the hopes of getting her to crawl. With as good as she is at sitting, we need to have her on her belly more so that she can learn to crawl before she learns to just scoot around on her butt. The physical therapists swear up and down that, once babies learn to do a seated scoot, it’s nearly impossible to teach them to crawl. So we spend time on her belly and try to scoop those knees up underneath her instead of being splayed like a little froggie.

But coolest of all, in the last week I can see her try to pick those little hips up on her own. Her stamina is improving almost every day, getting stronger and steadier in those hips and shoulders, kicking those legs, bouncing that little body.

I don’t know how long it will take, but my girl is going to crawl.

How awesome is that?

My big, awesome, 11-month-old girl. My munchkin, my pumpkin pie. What a joy you are. Happy almost-birthday.

Comments (12)

Categories : Birthdays, Child Development, Infants

Tags : crawling, developmental delays, Gross motor

Death Wish

By Goddess in Progress · Comments (10)· January 13th, 2012

[Unrelated: In case you're interested, you still have until Monday morning to join the weight-loss competition!]

– — – — –

Conversation in the car on the way home from preschool the other day:

Me: So, Daniel, what did you do in school today?

D: I did my journal. [As far as I can tell, they have a set of lined paper and are welcome to write whatever strikes their four-year-old fancy.]

Me: Oh, really? What did you write?

D: I wrote: “Me and Becca don’t want to die.”

Me: mouth agape, stunned silence

D: Well, what I wanted to write was “Me and Becca don’t want to die until we’re 100,” but I ran out of space, so I wrote “Me and Becca don’t want to die.”

W. T. F.?

I have mentioned this strange fixation on death before, and you can see it has not exactly gone away. Daniel, especially, is sticking with it (and the idea that people die at age 100, which I’m not sure how to debunk in either direction). I would say it comes up at least a few times a week, most often in a totally nonchalant way. It’s really getting under my skin, and yet I am at a total loss about what to do with it.

My gut reaction is that he doesn’t seem to be expressing any real anxiety over this idea. My default stance is a sort of non-reaction, maybe in the hopes that if I don’t overreact and draw extra attention and allure to the topic, it’ll eventually fade. But maybe I should try to talk to him about it in case he actually is concerned? I don’t even know where I’d begin, frankly.

Weird death thing aside, I will say that Daniel is otherwise your typical precocious preschooler. Generally happy, totally flighty and distractable, sometimes bent completely out of shape by the color of his fork. He’s a bright and inquisitive kid, which maybe means he’s digesting this information a little more thoroughly than his emotional maturity can handle, but otherwise is not a particularly anxious or stressed kid.

And, no, I actually haven’t gotten a call from his teacher about this. I get a call about Santa, but not about “me and Becca don’t want to die.” I can’t tell if that’s a good sign (as in, she’s been teaching preschoolers for 25 years and is totally unfazed) or what.

What say you, moms of the internets? Is this just one of those strange developmental things, an obsession that will pass with time? Or is this starting to cross a line and warrants a little TLC before he goes all morbid on me?

Comments (10)

Categories : Child Development, Preschoolers

Ending the lockout

By Goddess in Progress · Comments (10)· December 15th, 2011

For the last six weeks, Ellie has been on strike during her weekly physical therapy appointments. Oh sure, she would seem agreeable enough with her big smiles and blowing raspberries. But rolling over? Which she is perfectly capable of doing? No thanks. Grabbing toys? No interest. Nada.

It got to the point that going to the appointments was almost embarrassing. “I swear, she really does roll over at home. She does… you know… touch things from time to time instead of weirdly recoiling her hand when you try to give her something.”

We had really been spoiled. For the first four or five months of PT, there was noticeable improvement virtually every single week. Either she’d be doing something altogether new, or would be steadier and stronger at a previous skill. Halloween came along, and Ellie decided it was time to take a little break.

She wasn’t going backwards, exactly. In reality, it was clearly just a plateau. Normal. To be expected, even, after making so much progress. But with a baby who is already delayed, it’s frustrating when you stop seeing progress you’ve gotten used to. It’s hard not to get anxious over it.

Thankfully, in the last week, Ellie seems to be picking up the developmental pace once again. Sitting up even steadier than before, and finally starting to use her hands to grab a toy or stuffed animal, instead of just using them to prop herself upright. In fact, not only will she pick up the rings from the floor in front of her, but she’ll transfer them to the other hand, AND put them in her mouth! Fine motor, cognition, and oral de-sensitizing, all in one easy toy!

The fine motor stuff was starting to worry me, but I’m happy to say there’s been a noticeable improvement recently. Lots more grabbing and reaching, and suddenly in love with one of those four-key piano toys from my mother-in-law. She was even kind enough to show off for both the physical therapist AND the early intervention therapist this week. Everyone is thrilled to have her back with the program.

Even the feeding therapy stuff has been going a little better. She likes to explore those teething biscuit cookies, and lets me poke around her mouth with this textured brush we use to try to tone down her gag reflex. They’re small steps, but good ones for us.

Though I knew on a logical level that a plateau in her progress was totally normal and shouldn’t be worrisome, waiting for new skills to show up was really stressful and had me feeling quite discouraged. On an average day, I am only just holding the worry at bay, so it doesn’t take much to push me over the edge. Seeing her master new tricks again? Suddenly all feels right in the world.

Comments (10)

Categories : Child Development, Infants

Tags : Early Intervention, feeding therapy, Fine motor, Gross motor, occupational therapy, physical therapy

Ellie, 9 months

By Goddess in Progress · Comments (10)· November 28th, 2011

I have a particular gift for dates. I can remember the date I saw U2 when I was a freshman in high school, the date of my college graduation, and plenty of other random things. I remember a lot of birthdays. Well, sort of. I can tell you someone’s birthday, no problem. I remember the several days ahead of time that it’s coming. And then the actual day arrives and I completely forget until two or three days later. Such was Ellie’s nine-month birthday. Totally knew it was coming, totally forgot on the day of (last Friday, for the record).

Anyways, my sweet girl is now nine whole months old. Three-quarters of the way to her first birthday. We’ve just had her nine-month pediatrician visit and her semi-annual Early Intervention evaluation, so I’ve got a pretty good picture of where she stands.

As for the vitals, she’s about 17lb12oz, and 25.5″. That remains a perfectly average weight and a WAY BELOW AVERAGE length. Short and squishy, that’s my girl. Lucky thing got four shots this morning. It was supposed to be three, but the ancient pediatrician accidentally gave her HepA instead of HepB, so she got them both. When is my regular pediatrician coming back from maternity leave, again?!

EI re-evaluates kids every six months to make sure they still qualify for services (the child has to show at least a 30% delay in one or more areas to qualify). Ellie qualifies automatically based on feeding alone. They scored her at “0 months / newborn” in the area of “self care,” which is entirely feeding at this age. Frankly, they’d probably give her a negative score if they could. She eats nothing. She wants to eat nothing. She gags on everything. The feeding specialist we see through the hospital is visibly disappointed by her total lack of progress, and has proclaimed Ellie a “tough nut to crack.”

Feeding therapy sucks. I literally dab my pinky finger in the smallest amount of baby food you could imagine, and try to get Ellie to let me put it near her mouth, on her lips, or even just barely inside her mouth. Sometimes it’s borderline acceptable. And then sometimes it touches her tongue the wrong way and we have a two-minute gagging fit. It is so, so demoralizing. But we have to keep trying to walk the very fine tightrope of gently pushing her to try to get her used it it and to tame the gag reflex, while not going too far or too fast and creating/strengthening an aversion that will set us back several more months. It’s awful. I hate it. Period.

Gross motor skills scored at 5 months. On the one hand, Ellie’s sitting is getting very good. She’s rolling back and forth quite a bit, especially at naptime. She has even (after the evaluation, of course) started to get herself from sitting, down to her belly, then rolled over onto her back. It’s not terribly graceful and usually involves a slow faceplant, but it does seem to be quite intentional. She still lacks a lot of strength in her arms, and puts very little weight on her legs. Much work yet to be done here.

Fine motor skills were even lower at 3 months. That might be a little low, in my opinion, but regardless, she still needs a lot of work. One problem we’re having is that she is not terribly motivated by toys, so trying to entice her to grab something is very hard. Her own toes? No problem. Your face? For sure. Bright shiny baby toy? Meh. She is a lot more likely to grab things and play with them if she’s reclined or supported while sitting. When she’s sitting on her own, it seems like she’s using all of her energy to keep upright, nothing left for those little fingers.

Cognition was placed at 7 months, and the evaluator even wondered if it would have been higher if her fine motor skills were better. Some of the things they look for the baby to do to demonstrate understanding involves using their hands to manipulate objects. So it’s not necessarily that Ellie didn’t understand something, but potentially that she just didn’t have the fine motor skills to act on it. Regardless, I’m very happy that she falls with a fairly normal range on this one.

Receptive and expressive language were at 5 and 7 months. She makes a lot of different sounds, consonants and pitch and range and all of that, which is excellent. She doesn’t consistently respond to her own name, though.

And finally, social and emotional development. Clearly, she is Daniel’s sister – they scored her at 10 months. I couldn’t tell you exactly what it is she does that makes her a social overachiever, but she is most definitely an interactive baby. She loves to smile at people, loves to have company, loves to be entertained.

Feeding crap aside, I am really happy with all of this. I am especially thrilled that, at least for now, her cognition, language, and social skills are reasonably within the normal range. Every delay has its challenges, for sure. But the fact that she is so sociable, the fact that she seems to be making strides toward communication… well, that makes the rest of it downright bearable if you ask me. Motor skills I can work with. We can practice, we can strengthen, we can adapt. That spark in the eyes? That seems harder to cultivate, harder to compensate for.

Maybe I’m way off base, I have no idea. All I know is what I’ve got, and I am so glad that my girl has plenty of spark.

Comments (10)

Categories : Birthdays, Child Development, Infants

Tags : cognitive development, developmental delays, Early Intervention, feeding therapy, Fine motor, Gross motor, NaBloPoMo, Social/emotional development

Ellie, seven months

By Goddess in Progress · Comments (21)· September 28th, 2011

Ellie has spent the last few weeks working on a new trick.

One of the main characteristics that her providers have mentioned from the very first day she was born was “low tone.” For her age, she is noticeably weak and floppy. We had to support her head when holding her for much longer than you normally would, and tummy time was a complete non-starter. While her squishiness does make her extra cuddly, we’ve obviously been working on trying to help her get stronger. She gets physical therapy once or twice a week, and obviously we practice on our own. Thankfully, we have noticed steady improvement since starting PT back in May.

Since last month, tummy time has gotten much much MUCH better. She’s lifting her head way up high without any help, is starting to push up and support weight on her arms, and is generally a whole lot more tolerant of actually being on her belly in the first place.

It’s still hard work, though.

Even more noticeable is that, when she’s sitting on my lap, she no longer wants to lean back against me. She is constantly pulling herself forward, doing a little crunch with those core muscles to get into a more upright sitting position. The first time she did it, I was so surprised I almost let her fall off my lap. In PT, we started working on a little tripod/supported sitting. She’d manage it for a second or two, but she still keeps her hands in fists a lot of the time and doesn’t have a lot of arm strength, so there’s a lot of collapsing and folding in half. We keep pillows nearby.

Still, we’re working on it. Sometimes you can position her just right, help her lock those elbows and bend her legs for a nice supportive base, and she can almost get the hang of it.

And then, every now and then, you’re supporting her and you can feel those muscles engage in just the right way. And you have five or ten seconds to back up with the camera, and catch this:

With all those weeks in the hospital, talking about “abnormal MRI” this, and “hypotonia” that, and vague references to potentially severe cognitive, language, gross motor delays… I never imagined she’d be this close to independent sitting at a scant seven months. She’s still not what you would call “developmentally appropriate.” There’s still tons of work to do. But man. This is freaking awesome.

Almost as awesome as consonants. Did I mention she is babbling with consonants? Two of ‘em at the moment, “m” and “b.” (And I may have heard “p” this morning.) Again, much closer to the range of normal development than I could have dreamed five or six months ago.