Category: life

10 days later

So, here we are, 10 days later. 10 days since Theo arrived on the scene, 10 days since I posted. I fear that with my continued silence, I may be eliciting undeserved sympathy. Things have been busy, mind you, but not actually overwhelming. I’ve been meaning to post at least some sort of update, but haven’t managed to muster up the motivation to do so during the available windows. (I’ve usually been opting to, say, eat or bathe when finding myself with 2 free hands.) Plus I keep falling asleep at night, which has traditionally been my writing time. My body and mind have just been shutting down after about 10, and I can barely manage to pry myself off the couch and get ready for bed.

Anyhow, here’s what’s been happening since Theo was born early Monday morning. I stayed in the hospital Monday night, and asked for an early discharge. We got to go home Tuesday evening. The following days zipped by in a blur of appointments. Two weight checks at the doctor’s office, a visiting nurse, a lactation consultant, and 2 more appointments at the doctor’s office to follow up on concerns over a possible infection to the umbilical cord stump. (It turned out to be fine, but there was some redness and swelling, and then later a bit of smelliness. Which I’m sure you really wanted to know about.)

In general, things could not be more different than when Phoebe was a newborn. For the first couple of months of Phoebe’s life, I went a little bit insane. I was extremely sleep-deprived, and miserable much of the day. And night. Quite honestly, I dreaded going through all of that again. But so far, Theo has been a remarkably mellow baby. He soothes easily. He feeds well. He seems to be gaining weight. We are not beset by the bevy of breastfeeding problems. I’m recovering and healing much more quickly. I have even actually managed to get some sleep. (Actually, as I said, I haven’t managed to stay awake at times.) And believe it or not, I managed to do some work over the weekend. Sunday was the deadline for a paper submission (for one of the projects on which I’m a co-author), and I was at least able to contribute a few more hours to some of the last minute scurrying to get references sorted out and such.

Phoebe has been adjusting well so far, though there have been rough patches. She’s still been going to daycare 3 days a week, which I think helps a lot. It was also hugely helpful to have my mother out here. For Phoebe’s sake especially, but also for help with meals and household things. John was also able to take a few days off work, too, and has been putting in extra hours with Phoebe even now that he is back to the grind. So I’ve pretty much only had one very small, very mellow child on my hands. (And I can even often find other hands to help out with him.)

Of course, my mother went home yesterday, so we are just beginning our real test. But I’m at least starting off feeling moderately sane and well-rested. Not to mention lucky.

Theo at 1 week old.
Theo at 1 week old.

Standoff at the P.P. Corral

Prologue: Following a week of scattered confrontation, Phoebe “The Kid” and the Marshall square off for a day of showdown.

Scene 1: In a kitchen, shortly after breakfast.

    Phoebe “The Kid”: I need to go pee-pee.

    The Marshall: [perkily] Do you want to try sitting on the potty?

    Phoebe “The Kid”: No!

Scene 2: In a living room, about 20 minutes later.

    Phoebe “The Kid”: I need to use the potty

    Marshall: [perkily] Okay.
    [Phoebe and the Marshall go into the bathroom. Phoebe pulls down big girl underwear, climbs onto the toilet with special potty topper for small-bottomed bandits. Phoebe tenses up. Silence ensues.]

    Phoebe: I’m all done now!

    The Marshall: But Phoebe, there was no pee-pee. Can you sit there for a little bit longer?

    Phoebe “The Kid”: I’m all done now!

    The Marshall: [Attempts to negotiate, using various pleas, grovels, bribes…] Just like you’ve done so many times before. And you can get a sticker!

    Phoebe: [starting to sob] I’m all done now! I don’t need to go pee-pee.

Scenes 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, …
Scenes play out much as above, with dialog varying slightly. Intersperse with scenes of Phoebe looking uncomfortable and wanting to be held like a little baby. The music builds. The bladder holds tight. The underwear stays dry. The Marshall’s resolve withers.

Summary of the umpteenth scene, the final standoff, over 4 hours later: The Marshall realizes that she is outgunned and outwitted. Banging her head against the wall (which offers no more than a satisfying thud), she is about ready to raise her hands in defeat and give in to the diaper demands. In desperation, she calls for backup. The reinforcements come. As the Marshall sits pouting on the couch, the reinforcements’ masterful negotiating skills convince Phoebe to surrender her urine to the potty. Phoebe “The Kid” appears to be reformed, and is awarded a star.

Stay tuned for the riveting sequel, wherein new versions of the scenes above are played out following the nap.

———–

Over 6 weeks, 4 full charts, 28 stickers each chart, representing well over a hundred successful potty usages. (Things were looking so promising that we weren’t even putting stickers for most pee-pees. I’m sure you don’t want to get me started on the topic of “the other,” which has been another story. Actually, the story hasn’t been all that different from today’s feature film. Imagine dialogs much like those above, repeated about every other day.) Anyhow, we seemed to be in the home stretch. Phoebe had been using the potty at daycare for 2 straight weeks, coming home in the same dry pull-up diaper we sent her in. And then this last week, she stopped using the potty at daycare altogether. It could be that a new baby started at daycare. Which doesn’t quite bode well for the upcoming weeks…

It’s not like we’re back at square one. Phoebe is still using the potty at least once a day. But damn would I like to be done with this.

juggling acts

It’s been one of those weeks. Nothing major has happened, just a lot of little things that make me realize I can’t quite keep all of my balls up in the air.

I’ve had a lot of demands from work this week that I wasn’t expecting. There’s another deadline at the end of the month, and seeing as I don’t expect to be terribly available then, I feel particularly compelled to contribute as much as I can now. It turned out that a lot of the new data we were adding to the pool for this particular study needed a lot of cleaning up (as well as some of the old data), and I was the one in the best position to clean it up. So I’ve been putting in a lot of hours, including late night hours, this week. I’ve been quite productive, and yet since it was work I hadn’t anticipated, I don’t get the satisfaction of feeling that I’ve made progress. (Especially since this has left me virtually no time to work on my own research projects, and every time I have a pause in the progress there, it takes me a while to get my momentum back.)

Then Phoebe came down with a stomach bug that had been looming at daycare. I had toyed with the idea of keeping Phoebe home, but for one thing, I needed the work time. And for another, it was probable that Phoebe had already been exposed to the bug by the time we learned of the menace. So keeping her home wouldn’t have likely made much difference.

Phoebe is largely okay, though there have been some rough stretches. (This was actually the first time she’d ever vomited, aside from one flukey time when she was a very young baby. She was pretty freaked out by it. And can I just say that I’m lucky I didn’t lose my laptop to the inaugural event, which happened on the couch?) She was pretty chipper by this evening, so hopefully we can put this behind us. (And can I also say that I really, really don’t want to catch a stomach bug right now?)

I am so, so not ready for the new kid to arrive. The guest room still needs to be readied for my mother’s arrival (or for the contingency plan), the infant carseat installed, and there’s some form I’m supposed to send to the hospital that I haven’t even looked at. I haven’t even visited the hospital to find out where to go, where to park, etc., when the time comes. I’m told I’m supposed to have packed a bag by now, but that feels too much like admitting that I may need to use such a bag soon.

When people ask about “decorating the nursery,” I can only laugh. As far as nesting goes, I’ll be lucky if I can find the time and energy to clear out whatever lifeforms are currently nesting in my fridge.

So if you’ll excuse me, I have a few balls to chase around.

signs

I had a marginally eventful day today, with various unrelated things happening that gave me some pause.

  • The first event was being met with this message:

    Scrabulous is disabled for US and Canadian users until further notice. If you would like to stay informed about developments in this matter, please click here.

    I was just saying last night that I needed to buckle down and get stuff done. And mentioned my “other methods of procrastination.” Well, as it turns out, this was one of them: I’ve been playing a few games of Scrabulous (the Scrabble rip-off) on Facebook with a few friends.¹ It’s not a huge time sink, since a whole day usually passes between turns. But I was usually playing 2 or 3 games. (Okay, and I’ve tried a couple of other word games as well. What can I say? I love to play with words.) But now the makers of Scrabble are suing for intellectual property/copyright infringement (and I can’t say I blame them). So no more Scrabulous for me. And seing as I was just hinting at needing to cut down on my procrastination, this seemed to be a sign. Or perhaps a S₁I₁G₂N₁.

  • This evening I also experienced some more signs that my pregnancy is progressing. I’ve had quite a few (painless) contractions and various other sensations that remind me how little time may be left before the little guy makes his appearance. I’m almost 37 weeks along, and as such, I could go any day now. I’ve sort of been counting on having a few more weeks to get stuff done.
  • The final sign of the day was more unambiguously welcome. A box of brownie mix that has been sitting around for weeks (or months) caught my eye. In particular, the directions calling for 2 eggs. We had eggs for dinner last night, in part to try to finish them up before their expiration date. After last night, we had 2 eggs left. Exactly 2 eggs. Eerie, don’t you think? Add to that a craving for chocolate, a mixing bowl out of the dishwasher and not yet put away, and evening temperatures cool enough to consider turning on the oven, and I ask you: could the universe be sending me a clearer message than that?


    • —-

    Okay, there was one more event that happened today that got me riled up, but I can’t say I took it as any sort of a sign. I got into a bit of an altercation with a truck driver in Boston. He was trying to “help” me out of my parking space (which he, or perhaps another truck driver, had half-blocked me into) by yelling out somewhat useless and conflicting instructions. Which were then supplemented by rather patronizing and sexist comments. I was about ready to engage in fisticuffs. Perhaps I’ll have time to share the full rant later, now that I’ll have gained all that time from abstaining from addictive word games…

    ———-

    Oh, and there was some other good news. A good sign, even, one might say. Phoebe used the toilet at daycare for the first time today. (And second and third.) After my rant just last night. Further, she wore the same diaper home that she left home in. (And no, not due to neglect. Nor due to her stubbornly holding back all day, which did cross my mind.)

    —————-
    ¹ So, az, it looks like I can’t play for a bit. How does this affect Canadians living in Spain, by the way?

    catching up, bearing down

    I don’t have much time tonight, as it’s 10:30, and I’ve got some work to do before a meeting tomorrow. However, I feel compelled to give an update.¹

    Pregnancy seems to have finally caught up with me. After feeling strangely spry for the first 2 months of the 3rd trimester, my body apparently caught sight of the calendar. Suddenly, the heartburn has kicked in stronger. I’ve started having joint pains. Gravity is now exerting a greater than normal force on me, causing me to be more strongly adhered whatever surface I happen to be sitting on. And most irritatingly, the sausage feet that visited me occasionally have not only returned, but apparently camped in for the long haul. I feel like I am walking around with a 5 pound weight strapped to each of my feet, and I can barely shove my feet into the pair of sandals that had previously fit just fine. When I take my sandals off, I get a couple of big stripes of puffiness and dents that would make the Michelin man proud. Attractive as this may sound, there is a downside. My feet hurt, dammit.

    I’ve been trying to keep my feet up when I can, but this is not as often as one might expect when one is tending to a toddler. While Phoebe has gotten quite capable at many tasks, showing amazing fine motor skills in her paper-folding abilities, she has not yet mastered the art of cookery. Letting her have a go with the cooking knives did not go well, and she struggles with even the most rudimentary recipes. (This should not surprise me, considering previous research.)

    Then there’s the potty training, which continues to be the bane of my existence. We are on our third chart now, each glimmering with sparkly stickers of victory. 28 stickers on each completed chart. And not a single potty usage at daycare. (The child, who apparently has some sort of will of her own, has announced her intentions of using her diaper at daycare. She can do well keeping her big-girl underwear clean and dry at home, but if she is wearing a diaper, she tends to use it. And the daycare provider is not comfortable with kids wearing underwear until they have demonstrated an ability to use a potty for a couple of weeks.)

    I had an ultrasound today, as the new kiddo was stubbornly keeping his head up at my last appointment. Happily, he is now facing the general direction of the exit. Also, he appears to be growing well. (I actually had an ultrasound 4 weeks ago, too, to check on growth. My external measurements were not increasing over a whole month, which was a bit unsettling. We’ve both caught up, though.)

    I also had my last violin lesson for some indeterminate amount of time, which should at least make my schedule feel slightly lighter as I continue to grow heavier. Which is good, since I am feeling the pressure of time bearing down on me. I still have work/school goals I haven’t yet abandoned, and there is some chance I can get some of them done.²

    —-

    ¹ I’m apparently still addicted enough to this blogging business that I will take a break from my other methods of procrastination in order to blather on.

    ² Assuming I stop procrastinating.³

    ³ I’m still also working on finishing up writing about our experiences with Early Intervention. I’ve also got some pants on the backburner. (And I say Phoebe has trouble with cooking?) So, as soon as I have a chance to catch up….

    she picked black for the background of the most recent chart.
    Phoebe's progress charts. Note the evidence that Phoebe is our child: she picked black for the background of the most recent chart.

    early intervention: starting to get into it (part 3)

    Last week I started writing about our experiences with Phoebe and Early Intervention for a language delay. Part 1 was about the original assessment, and part 2 was about starting to work with a speech pathologist. (If you are interested, you may also want to see what I wrote before the original assessment back in November.)

    ——–

    Some time in January, our speech pathologist told us of an opening in a parent-toddler group that we could attend on Mondays. I wasn’t sure what to expect from the play group. I hadn’t had a whole lot of interaction with groups of parents and toddlers.

    The group leader, N., was a very friendly young woman who welcomed us warmly. The other parents were generally quite friendly as well, and all were supportive of all the kids in the group. There were about 8 kids in the group (each accompanied by a parent or other family member), with the number fluctuating a bit week by week. The first week we were there, Phoebe was the only girl at the group. Apparently boys are flagged for Early Intervention services much more frequently than girls. However, our group did have quite a few girls re-appear and join the group over time, as well. (In fact, at the last group we attended, there were more girls than boys. However, this was considered remarkable.) All kids were under 3, as services only cover kids up to 3. The youngest child was 18 months when we started, though I later learned that he was a “community child,” meaning a child not receiving EI services, and attending the group as a “model.” Most children were closer to 2. (Phoebe was almost 2 when she started.)

    While I know groups vary quite a bit, here’s an overview of what went on during the group.

    The group met for 2 hours, from 9 to 11 in the morning. Things started off with some unstructured time where kids could ease into things, and play with various toys set up in stations around the room. This gave adults a bit of time to chat (and thankfully, time to run late). The group leader, N, would also move around the room and chat with each child, and also with the adults to get progress updates. Other activities then followed, in a more-or-less fixed order: clean-up from the free play, snack time, playground time (indoor or outdoor, depending on weather), craft time, “circle time” (with songs) and then the good-bye. Each activity had it’s own routine and sometimes associated songs.

    Because the group was geared towards working on expressive language and communication skills, the routines typically involved getting the kids to participate and communicate. For example, for the snack, there was always a choice of 2 snack items, and the child was encouraged to express their choice. “Do you want crackers or raisins?” N might ask, showing both options. And depending on the individual’s abilities and level, different answers would be encouraged. For most of the kids, a single word or sign was encouraged. (Some of the kids weren’t speaking, though all in the group were hearing.) Sometimes a “please” would be encouraged. For some kids, such as those just entering the group, pointing to the desired snack was enough. For more advanced speakers, a whole-sentence request was elicited: “I want crackers.” I remember being impressed by one little boy, who was almost 3 and had been attending the group and getting EI services for at least a year, because he could sometimes be prompted to ask: “Can I have crackers, please?”

    Our own goal for Phoebe was to get Phoebe to make requests using single words. Even after she started making such requests with us, she was still very reluctant to speak in front of others. She would sometimes manage only to point, or only to whisper her choice in a single word. What was nice was that every attempt was greeted with encouragement and praise, and there was little pressure. If a child wasn’t up to making a request, a choice would be made for them and they would still get encouragement.

    I swear that Phoebe loved every bit of the play group time. She was probably fondest of circle time, where we’d all sit in a circle and sing songs. Each child would get a turn, in the order of our seating arrangement, to pick between two toys representing songs: a spider, a fish, a boat, a bus, etc. Most of the songs (or at least the tunes) were familiar to me (and some to Phoebe), and a subset of the same group of songs would be chosen each week. All the songs had some sort of movement or gestures, so that kids could participate with their hands and feet. (Mostly the kids did not sing along, but the adults all did.)

    Phoebe behaved quite wonderfully during the group, staying in her seat, following instructions, and observing everything going on around her. I think it helped that she had already been attending daycare, which also had a bit more structure than our time together at home. (I think Phoebe is also rather on the mellow side, as toddlers go.) The kids in the group varied in how well they could focus. A few kids would have trouble sitting still, especially by the end of the 2 hours. But for the most part, all the kids seemed tuned in for at least most of the group time.

    While I was worried that I would find the whole thing painfully hokey, seeing Phoebe so engaged was really gratifying. And while she continued to be quiet during the group time itself, she started to show a lot of signs early on that she was really taking in the lessons of the group.

    —–

    Okay, I’m still not done. Next time, I’ll write more about Phoebe’s progress. And maybe about the one-on-one sessions. If anyone out there has questions about particular aspects of the EI services we received, please feel free to leave a comment or email me. (See the “contact alejna” page in the sidebar.)

    staying put for a bit

    We just got back from a visit to my in-laws in New York. (We got in close to 1 a.m.) This will be our last visit down for a while, and also my last long-distance trip planned for this pregnancy. I’ve got less than 5 weeks to go before the due date, so it seems a good time to stick around close to home. (Holy crap, have I travelled a lot this pregnancy. 2 trips across the country and another to Texas, a trip to South America, a 7-hour-each-way car trip up to upstate New York, and umpteen 4-hour-each-way car trips down to see the inlaws. Not to mention all my 1-to-2-hour-each-way commutes into Boston, which I’ll still be doing twice a week for a couple of weeks yet. Does this mean I’m saddling the new kid with a gigantic carbon footprint? Or do we get some sort of break for essentially carpooling?)

    I still owe that next post on early intervention, for anyone who might be wondering. I haven’t forgotten (or abandoned the idea), just had no breathing room over the weekend. And likely will have no time till late tomorrow night, either.

    early intervention: getting started (part 2)

    Last night I posted a bit about Phoebe’s initial assessment for Early Intervention services. This is part 2. (If you are interested, you might also want to look back at what I wrote back at the end of November, and how we ended up getting the assessment.)

    ——-

    As I mentioned, because of the time of year, it was several weeks after the assessment before our services got started.

    In early January, we heard from the person who would be taking on our case. (I’m actually not sure what her specific qualifications were. And actually, I never thought to ask. But we’ll call her a speech pathologist.) She set up an appointment to come to our house for a first meeting to talk to us about goals, and to write up our ISP (Individual Service Plan).

    At that time, our main concern was that, while she used quite a large number of different words to label things at her own discretion, and would occasionally produce longer utterances of her observations, Phoebe didn’t often use language to communicate her needs and wants. What was most difficult was that she would typically only ask for things by pointing, or sometimes just by becoming unhappy, and we would have the job of trying to figure out what was wanted. Most of the time, we were able to do this, largely through playing what was a lot like a game of 20 questions. Are you hungry? Do you want milk? Do you want the toy? Are you hurting? Those times when we didn’t come up with the right question, Phoebe would get frustrated. She would sometimes start making that sort of grunting/groaning toddler noise, and occasionally break down crying. Mind you, these times were few and far between, but we wanted to get past them. We knew, for example, that she could say the word (and in some cases the sign) for many of things that she wanted. But somehow, she was never willing to say them as a request.

    This was the main goal written on her ISP: for Phoebe to make simple requests, using single words.

    We also worked at that first meeting on getting a schedule for services. The speech pathologist would meet with Phoebe once a week, either at our home or at Phoebe’s daycare. Phoebe could also attend a weekly group at one of the program offices (either a parent-child group, or a “drop off” group). Since I wanted to be involved in the process, we got signed up for a parent-child group. I also wanted to be around for the one-on-one meetings, rather than have them take place at daycare. As it turned out, because of my tight schedule, we ended up scheduling our one-on-one meetings right after the play group, at the program building, rather than having a separate meeting at our home on a different day.

    We did have one more home visit from the speech pathologist before starting the regular schedule. She came over with a bag of toys, and sat down to play with Phoebe. Because that was just what it seemed like. As they played, the speech pathologist used very short, simple sentences and repeated single words often. I was very impressed with how engaged Phoebe was right from the start.

    The speech pathologist also left us with some suggestions for encouraging Phoebe to make requests. The main suggestion was to frequently give Phoebe a choice of two things. For example, when offering a crayon, we should ask “Do you want green or blue?” When she’d point to one or the other, we should use the single word, repeating it clearly a couple of times. I was a bit skeptical about how much difference this could make, but having seen how engaged Phoebe was during the meeting, I decided to work this into our daily routine.

    It may well have been a total coincidence of timing, but we had a breakthrough shortly after. I wrote a post about it on my old “Phoebe blog” (which I used mostly to post updates for family and friends) on January 19th. Since that site seems to be broken just now, I’ll copy the whole thing here:

    We’ve been working on trying to get Phoebe to express her wants to us more clearly. Phoebe uses a lot of words, but usually just to name things. She’s quite good at responding to questions, like “what does a dog say?” (“woof”) or “what color is this?” (“gee!”) or “do you want milk?” (“yup.”)

    She has started asking for things that are just out of her reach. She will, for example, point to where we keep her beads and say “bee?” There has also been at least one time when she has wanted us to get her Bunny out of her crib, and she’s pointed towards her room and said her version of “Bunny.” However, she has been reluctant about making requests for things that she can’t see.

    Today, though, we had an exciting moment. We were in the car heading home from a meeting in Boston, and having a snack of graham crackers. I asked Phoebe if she wanted some water. To which she replied. “No. Milk, yeah!”

    (Unfortunately, we didn’t actually have any milk in the car with us. But we were at least able to acknowledge her request by saying that we would get milk later.)

    —–

    Okay, I’ll have to continue this again later. (It’s late at night once more.) Next time, I’ll write about going to the play group.