Our first Christmas
Our first Christmas as a family of three was so awesome that we held it over so we could celebrate two days in a row. Well, maybe we held it over because Oscar awoke on Christmas day with a horrible cold. He had been feeling poorly for a couple days, with a fever running around 103 before Tylenol. With Tylenol, it was dropping down to 100-101, so no big deal. On Christmas morning, though, this is what Oscar looked like at about 8:00 am. I sat him on the kitchen island and he proceeded to assume this position, which he really did not want to change.
I, of course, thought we should power through whatever Oscar was feeling and celebrate Christmas. Etta, after all, was raring to go.
We moved into the living room, where Etta tried to get her brother to go check out the presents left by Santa. When that didn’t get him off the sofa, she decided to take one for the team and feign the holiday spirit and open some presents. Oscar eventually rallied when he saw Etta with a gift he liked (her princess ride on), walking to the playroom to get his similar toy (his birthday gift from Grandma and Papa for his first birthday). Even he couldn’t get excited about it, though, and we decided to call off the unwrapping of the presents when he got off the car and fell asleep on the floor.
Eventually, when Oscar just couldn’t muster any energy at all, I broke down and took him to urgent care. They thought it was either the flu, some random virus or pneumonia, but his chest x-ray was clear. They sent us home with a prescription to force some fluids into him, preferably something like a milkshake (why do I never get these prescriptions for myself?) and we set off to find food. Finding food on Christmas Day is not so easy. I wasn’t able to stop at the store, since I was told not to take Oscar into public areas, since he was highly contagious, so a drive thru was needed. Easier said than found. Long story short, we ended up driving almost an hour to find food. Oscar drank almost none of the required shake, but Etta made up for it, of course. We managed to get home and ended our first Christmas together by falling into bed before 6:00 pm.
I figured there was no way Oscar was recovering from this bug for at least a couple of days, so I was in for a surprise when I got up this morning and found a bright-eyed Oscar asking for food. After eating something, he ran into the living room and found his stocking. Christmas mayhem finally ensued, with Oscar tearing through a few presents and then playing for hours.
Yes, Oscar is wearing the same pyjamas as the day before (he even wore these to the urgent care). You can tell it’s another day, though, by the hair.
Thankfully, Oscar was willing to attend to his personal hygiene and take a shower (with glasses) before we opened more presents.
We got tired of opening presents. Not because there were hundreds, but I’m happy to say that my kids like to open a present and then play with it for a considerable while. No tearing through dozens of presents at a time yet. The only downside is that we have now had three present-opening sessions and will need a fourth tomorrow to get through the presents under the tree. Even I find three days of this to be a bit much.
Anyway, it ended up being a beautiful day today and we ventured outside to play with Oscar’s scooter.
The kids were having a good time, but I noticed Etta wasn’t looking quite like her fun-loving self, so we headed inside.
When we got inside, Etta showed me something awesome. A nose even runnier than her brother’s had been the day before. Super. Then she threw up (which was the first symptom Oscar exhibited). She’s now asleep with a fever, and I suspect that we’ll have to postpone our last day of opening presents and read some of these gifts instead. I’m thinking that little kid who said “pooh” to receiving books for Christmas (see youtube) wouldn’t last long in our house. . .
Hope your holidays were healthier than ours.
A Tiny Clarification
I’m finding it next to impossible to actually draft the contract that I was given for Christmas by my employer, so I thought I’d head over here instead to explain something. When I mentioned having a nervous breakdown when Oscar received an autism diagnosis, I did not mean to imply that I lost it because of autism. The breakdown I experienced was more of a result of the fact that I thought that the specialists just were not paying attention to Oscar’s symptoms, but simply wanted to put him in a box and mark it PDD-NOS. I felt like no matter what I told them in the hours and hours of interviews and tests, that the moment they saw him spin and shake his hands near his face (which, although not typical hand flapping, would be close enough for them), that he would be smacked with the PDD stamp. This, despite everything else they had been told about how he processes information, his social and very affectionate nature, etc. And, sure enough, that is what happened.
What I like about the center we’re using for his treatment is that, although Oscar (and I) have gone through dozens of hours of assessments, they are not quick to label him at all. Sure, there have been certain diagnoses of the obvious (like SPD and a very apparent anxiety disorder), but they’re also very open about the complexities of his condition. What I respect about them is that the therapists will comment throughout their sessions with Oscar, pointing things out to me (e.g., “see, that’s what caused others to say Oscar has apraxia”) and then a few moments later they’ll point something else out that explains away that previous categorization (e.g., “if Oscar was apraxic, he would not be able to do [x] and [y] at all, or not very clearly, and we’ve seen him do [x] and [y] repeatedly and very well”). He doesn’t fit nicely in a box. They’ll tell me straight out that they don’t have a label for him, but they’ve seen traits like his before. That, to me, is the most honest approach possible in this situation.
At one point I thought it would be easier if they would just pin a diagnosis on him and that would be that. I didn’t even care what that diagnosis was. Autism? Fine. They could even tell me that his brain is composed entirely of feta cheese, and my response would be “okay . . . what’s the best course of treatment for feta head?”
To me, this is no longer about the label, it’s only about getting Oscar the most appropriate treatment for whatever is going on in his brain. And, since the most likely cause of his issues appears to be a processing disorder, I just didn’t want us to go down a course of treatment for autism that would certainly overlap in parts with a treatment for a processing disorder, but would not be as effective as treating the processing issue specifically.
Anyway, here are some recent pics of feta head and Etta getting ready for a Christmas party . . .
Things I never thought I would hear
Oscar saying:
- “Buddha,” while looking at a picture of Buddha in a photo book of Vietnam
- “Chi,” while looking at a picture of Ho Chi Minh in the same photo book of Vietnam (honestly, I don’t know how he knew this one; Buddha, sure, he’s heard him, mostly since I’ve told him we’re going to go to temples and meet Buddhist monks in Thailand (and perhaps someone has referred to a certain someone’s Buddha Belly), but Uncle Ho?)
- “Love you,” to my parents
- “Bye guys, see you soon” (sounds like “bye gye, seeeo soo-ooon”), practiced while Oscar plays with his toy cars
- “Bye pinch . . . hi pinch”
and my current favorite:
- “Night night, boob,” to my chest
Me saying:
- “[Oscar], you really need to stop talking now so [Etta] can go to sleep”
- “Seriously, [Oscar], stop talking now”
Fun in ‘Homa II
Still not loving Vietnamese food
Loving any food
Walking in the woods with Papa and Cousin J
Apparently the problem was with the swim teacher and not swimming
Fun in ‘Homa
We survived our first flights as a family of three! I considered this trip to see the grandparents to be a bit of a test run for our upcoming trip to Thailand, and from our travel experiences so far, I’m both reassured that we’ll manage fine and also a bit daunted. Oscar managed the trip fairly well, but both he and his sister are proving to be a bit clingy now that we’ve arrived at Grandma’s house (he refers to both Grandma and Papa as “Grandma”).
Oscar was, again, a fabulous flyer. He sat in his seat all by himself, without trying to push himself onto my lap, which was nice. He scored window seats after the gate agent noticed that American had reseated the two of us in different rows (geniuses). I was concerned that he would be scared of takeoff, but he loved it – yelling “go go go” to make the plane go faster. When we left Dallas we ran into some weather, and he was a little nervous in the clouds, but when we broke out of them to a point where he could look at the clouds all he could say was “wow” over and over. Very sweet.
Etta loved being the center of attention everywhere we went, with people on our flight from SFO stopping by to tell us how beautiful our little family is. Unfortunately, when we arrived in Oklahoma things changed. My previously “easy” daughter apparently is experiencing separation anxiety and has not allowed a single person other than me to touch her, which isn’t going over well with her cousins, aunt and grandparents, but we still have a few days left here.
Oscar and Etta both experienced their first summer storms (we don’t really have thunder and lightning in No. California, and it only rains between mid-October and March). Etta was clueless, but Oscar seemed to think the lightning and thunder were fun and the fact that it was raining when it was warm was awesome, apparently. He thought the first clap of thunder was “cool,” but the very loud lightning strikes were a bit scary until Papa yelled back at the lightning, which seemed to make everything okay.
Other than that, we’re just hanging out with the family. Oscar loooves his cousins, who seem to think he’s a new pet, chasing him around until he squeals. Grandma just made a big batch of chocolate chip cookies, which I suspect will be demolished by tomorrow morning.
A few pics from our afternoon today . . .
Best song ever?
“Twinkle, twinkle, twinkle . . . Star
Hm-hm hm-hm hm-hm hm
Sky
Twinkle, twinkle . . . Star
Orange!”
Oscar’s first song - August 31, 2010, 9:14 PM
Life as a full-time (stay at home) mom
Before going out on maternity leave, I totally expected that I would spend more time blogging while I was out. Clearly, I would have more to blog about – entire days spent with the kids, with all of the photo ops that would naturally afford, would certainly lead me to write more. Turns out, that’s not the case.
I had forgotten one important fact. My life is sort of boring. Yeah, sure, staying home all day with the kids is fun for us, but who really wants to read about my attempts (failed) to teach Oscar to dress himself?
Or my daily campaign to keep my son out of my girly products?
Or my fading dream of raising a boy who appreciates good food?
Or my periodic reminders to myself that this leave is actually supposed to be for me to bond with Etta (which really is silly, since anyone who meets her bonds with her immediately)? Kidding, of course. You don’t see as many pics of Etta only because (1) she’s usually sitting or crawling on or over me, (2) we’re not accompanied on our outings with a photographer or (3) instead of snapping pics at home, I’m usually dropping the camera, asking “what is that in your mouth? no, no, you can’t eat ____.”
And, if I don’t blog about those things, there really isn’t all that much left to write about. Swimming lessons (for Etta, since Oscar is finished with that – bye bye swimming)? Our daily walk to see the train? The mystery illness that hit everyone in the house over the course of the past week? My trip to the FedEx office to apply for Etta’s visa to visit Thailand? I’m telling you, my life is chock-full of excitement. Here’s hoping our day tomorrow will be blog-worthy. . .
My water babies
I was all set to post about my children’s love of water today. Both had just come off of great swim lessons over the past few days and Oscar had been practicing his moves in my big pool-sized tub. Then I went and screwed around with perfection and rescheduled Oscar’s lesson for this afternoon, since he and his sister had back-to-back hearing tests this morning. Big mistake.
We got to the pool (me, with video camera in hand to document his amazing progress) and Oscar was psyched to jump in the pool, but Teacher Liza was late, so we sat there for 15 minutes in the sun and Oscar started to doze. When she got there, he wanted nothing to do with her or the pool, but as any good parent who had shelled out the extortionate and obviously non-refundable private lesson fee would do in this situation, I threw him into the pool with his teacher anyway. Not a good call. He worked himself up so badly that he actually threw up a little in the pool. Yeah, I couldn’t believe it was happening either. So, I got him out of there and we went home where he took a nice two hour nap.
When we went to go get dinner later, I asked him what happened at the pool and he said “bye bye swimming.” When Oscar says bye to something, that’s usually the end of it unless he follows it up with “hi”. Like, at night he’ll say “bye bye train” and then follow it up with “hi train”, “bye bye Etta” and then “hi Etta”, “bye bye milk” and then “hi milk”. I tried to get him excited about his next lesson by telling Etta about the fact she was going to go swimming in the morning. Pretty awesome mom, huh? Intentionally sparking jealousy among the kids? Don’t worry, it didn’t even work. His reaction? Bye bye swimming.
I’ve decided not to push it for the time being. I paid for the private lessons. If need be, I’ll hop into the pool with the instructor if that gets him over this hump. I just don’t want to create a situation where he hates water (least of all since we’re about to embark on a vacation where pools will be a highlight of every stop). I’m sure we’ll figure it out.
Since I don’t have any cute pics of swimming babies, I’ll just post a few from around the house today.
The best-laid plans
Well, the plan was that I was going to make a point of updating this old thing at least every Saturday. I was in the midst of doing just that two weeks ago when my precious children got into an argument. By “argument,” I mean Oscar yelling at Etta while on the bed. She started it, I’m sure, by doing something as annoying as smiling at her brother all gummily. I separated them, knowing that it would be only moments before she nastily provoked another attack, perhaps by cooing at him adoringly. I turned to grab bottles and nighttime diapers on the bedside table, thinking I’d see this as an opportunity to get them both into bed. When I turned my head back to the foot of the bed, I saw Oscar running across the bed, away from his sister, straight for the laptop at the edge of the bed. He went to swerve to avoid it, and managed to twist and fall, seemingly in slow motion, right off the bed.
I got to him a second after he hit, but obviously that was too late. He screamed like I’d never heard before. I was thinking maybe he’d dislocated his elbow, since that happens all the time with him, but when I went to feel it, I knew we had a much bigger problem. His elbow was not where it was supposed to be. Not even close. It felt like it was about two inches to the right of center on his arm. Not good.
So, this is where the fun started. I got both of the kids dressed (sort of), bottles made (knowing we were not going to get back home soon), mapped directions to the good E.R. and piled us all into the car, which seemed a lot smaller than usual. I think it took 20 minutes to get to the hospital, but it seemed like an eternity, probably because Oscar took this opportunity to start stringing three words together (for the first time ever, BTW) “Mom elbow hurt” and “elbow ow Mom” over and over again.
We arrived at the hospital, Oscar screaming, and were seen immediately (screamers get this treatment, BTW). This is where it all began to resemble a farce. I had Etta in one arm and Oscar in another. We saw a doctor, then were pulled into a room where I was told to get Oscar on the bed. We all know the only way that was going to happen, so I got onto the bed with Oscar, Etta sitting on top of me. This was about 9:00 pm. The three of us did not leave this bed until a little before 3:00 am the next morning. I even got to the point where I was able to ignore the stares while we were wheeled from room to room, Oscar and me lying down with Etta sitting on top of my stomach watching everything. The only time we were separated was the first time Oscar needed x-rays, when the technician took Etta into the other room to spare her from being irradiated. Let’s just say that we then found out that Etta really is bonding to me, as she yelled a bit like her brother.
Very long story short(ish), Oscar’s elbow was not dislocated. A pediatrician with a crazy (seriously, CRAZY) handlebar mustache with curlicues all over the place (like this, but even more bizarre, if possible . . . )
said he thought it was broken, but that the x-ray was not conclusive. Then we had more x-rays, then more indecision. Finally, at 3:00 am they put a splint on Oscar’s arm, discharged him and we went to the car, where my little guy said one word. Cookie. Oy. So, we got in the car and started driving until I found a McDonald’s where I promptly purchased a cookie, which he bit into, dropped and ignored.
We went to the orthopedic surgeon two days later, and I was certain she was going to tell me that his arm was fine. He was, by then, running like a maniac around the house. Instead, we sat down and she showed me his x-rays and said that his arm was clearly broken in two spots. They slapped a cast on him from the tips of his fingers to right up to his armpit and that was that. We return tomorrow to get the first cast off and to talk to someone about whether he’ll need surgery. Then they’re going to put him in another cast thingy and a special sling for another month or longer. It’s all a lot of fun.
Aside from that, we’ve been busy boxing up our lives for our upcoming move. I have the keys to the new house, which I explored yesterday afternoon with the kids. Etta was very excited by her introduction to carpeting, and Oscar was just happy to have something new to run around in. He seemed particularly excited about his new playroom, A/K/A the garage.
The house really is quite cute, but each time I go there, I come home to our current house with a renewed desire / appreciation of the need to jettison our belongings. It’s a very small house. So far, I’ve done pretty well. I have half of the garage filled with stuff for the G00dwill truck that is coming next week. I’m basically getting rid of a fully equipped one-bedroom apartment and entire wardrobes for a fatty and an infant boy. Someone is going to be very lucky.
I have a bit of a dilemma. The new house has three bedrooms. Two are decent sized and the other is 11.5′ x 11.5′, which I guess is sort of small. It would be totally mean of me to put Nanny Norma in the smaller bedroom, right? All three have marble bathrooms, with jetted tubs, but it is a small room. Oscar will sleep in my room, so the other bedroom is really for Etta’s crib, the kids’ dresser, changing table and rocking chair. There really wouldn’t be much room to play. The other bedroom would provide room for the kids to play inside, but that would relegate Norma to the little room.
Aside from having a bit of play room for the kids upstairs, there is one other reason I’ve been considering putting Norma into the smaller room. Norma always closes her bedroom door. I don’t blame her. If I were living with freaks like us, I would, too. But, the other bedroom is at the top of the stairs, and the staircase is open to the landing. I *hate* closed doors in a house. I don’t know why, but I just do. It wouldn’t bother me as much if it were a room in a corner somewhere I wouldn’t have to see, but walking into a house and seeing a closed door would make me crazy. See, I said we were freaks. I’ll have to think about this some more.
In the meantime, here are pics from our outing yesterday. Oscar is sporting a camo cast cover (all the rage with the cool kids these days) and Etta is modeling a crocheted headband by the Rosey Posey. Sorry for the lousy pics of the big guy, but he doesn’t really slow down enough these days for the paparazzi.
All About Oscar
I feel like I’ve been giving the little guy less than his share of blog space lately, but he’s had tons going on. First, he’s growing like a weed. Again. He must be close to 38 inches tall by now. He’s gaining some weight as well, but we simply cannot keep enough food in him to get to a point where I can’t feel his ribs. Having a sister has helped a little, since every time she eats, he wants to eat, too, including her baby food. We’re not picky, though, if it has some nutritional value (even if it is a mcn*gget) and he’ll eat it, it goes in his mouth.
He’s also made two really sweet friends. I have mentioned them before, but he’s become acquainted with a pair of three-year old twins from his music class. They have playdates at least 3-4 times a week. One of them is very verbal, which I think is great for Oscar. He’s also been able to help them out on the potty training front, since he’s a bit more advanced there. I actually considered not moving because he had made friends, but I nipped those fears in the bud. He’s two. He has not made a lasting friendship yet. Plus, the woman next door to the house we leased has a three-year old, so maybe they’ll be friends.
More importantly, Oscar has made some significant strides developmentally. His ability to mimic has really taken off. He repeated the alphabet for me yesterday. The entire thing. He repeats words constantly, even difficult ones like popsicle and triangle and his pronunciation is very good. His receptive language abilities have improved greatly, too. He clearly understands what things are now, and he’s far more inquisitive. He doesn’t say “what” yet, but he will point and use one of his Oscar phrases (unh, unh, unh) to get his point across and we’ll explain what something is or what it does. His spontaneous speech is still limited to those things he wants the most – Mom, go, car, bye-bye (insert name), night night, candy, help, up, oh no, Elmo and cookie.
Even cooler? Oscar will follow directions now. I had assumed that this would never occur. That he would forever ignore me, but now I ask him to do something, and he does it. He’ll take something to Norma in another room, he’ll help me put away his toys, he’ll even follow certain two-step directions. It’s astonishing. He understands what I’m saying. That was not happening before.
A few months ago friends and Oscar’s therapists started telling me to prepare myself for him to fall behind his peers even more than he was already. They explained that there is a huge developmental spurt that occurs before the third birthday and he was not likely to experience it. I had taken their advice to heart, but I’m thinking that this has to be what is going on now. The difference between where he is now and where he was even a few weeks ago, before I went to ET, is astounding. I’m trying to maximize it by labelling everything we see, reading more books and just talking with him as much as possible to see if this will boost his vocabulary even more.
We also saw a new SLP for an evaluation a few days after I got back from ET (you know, since I wasn’t doing anything). Her assessment is that he does not have apraxia, but that his delays are cognitive based instead. There’s both good and bad in that, so I don’t know how to take that news just yet.
All in all? Really good stuff happening for the little guy.
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Etta’s Hats
Where I’ve Been
