the dentist

The boys had their 1st dentist appointment today!

I’ll just let you know upfront that we did not get a single picture of the milestone.  It didn’t even occur to me until we got to the car that I should have taken a picture.  But in between wrangling toddlers in a toy filled waiting room and completing 20 pages of new patient paperwork and consoling traumatized little boys I somehow forgot to pull out the camera for a quick picture.  Silly Me!! We went to a local pediatric dentist.  The practice was definitely kid friendly and the staff ran a tight operation to get the kids in and out as fast as possible.  This is great.  And much appreciated.  But this also meant that I was dragging around a mountain of paperwork the entire time because I never had enough time to actually sit and finish it.  Add that to lugging around heavy winter coats and hats and gloves (because it was -9 today) and stuffed animals and the diaper bag and snacks and things get even more chaotic.  The whole appointment, for both boys, took a total of 45 minutes and had I not had the paperwork to do we would have actually been out in 30 minutes.  That’s awesome.  They took both boys back at the same time.  Jakob immediately started crying and clinging to Kara when the dental hygienist called his name in the waiting room.  Jakob may be the biggest flirt in the world but he is super leery of new situations!  We held each boy in our lap (facing us) and then laid their head down on the dental hygienists lap.  So essentially the dental hygienist was cleaning their teeth upside down.  This way we could hold their arms and the dental hygienist could cradle their head.  Jakob sobbed and screamed the entire time.  I’m still not sure how the dental hygienist managed to clean his teeth!  But his teeth looked great.  No cavities.  Jakob is still missing his two year molars (4 teeth) and his cuspids (4 teeth).  I guess Jakob doesn’t have a whole lot of room in his mouth so the dentist encouraged us to try and start flossing his teeth.  That should be fun.  We can barely get the little man to let us brush his teeth.  But I guess we did learn a better way of holding him today.  So Alex was watching quietly from the corner while Jakob was screaming and sobbing in the chair getting his teeth cleaned by the dental hygienist.  It was interesting to watch Alex from a distance.  You could see his face get more and more concerned as the minutes ticked by until eventually you saw this tiny little tear trickling down his face.  Was he concerned because his brother was upset?  Or was he concerned because he knew he was next?  Who knows?  But it was neat to watch his emotions nonetheless.  Alex fought the dental hygienist a bit but he did not scream and cry.  You could just tell he was not happy about the situation.  Alex is only missing his two year molars (4 teeth) at this point.  Alex has started chewing on the inside of his cheeks.  We are not sure why at this point.  He does it mainly in his sleep at night so it could be a subconscious behavior.  The dentist just asked us to keep any eye on it and if it got too bad we can bring him in to evaluate it some more.  I had also mentioned it to his speech therapist the other day.  I’m not sure if it is relevant to any speech behaviors.  The dentist also gave a fluoride treatment to the boys.

So we go back again in six months.  Perhaps it will be easy the next time?   Or not.

Mary

taking some action

There's no looking back now.  We are officially past questioning the benefit of speech therapy for Alex.  I feel like we went from questioning the benefits of speech therapy to basically accepting all the help we can get for Alex.  I think I was in some denial about the significance of Alex's speech delay.  I've come to accept the fact that my 20 month old is way behind the curve at this point.  I have not come to accept the fact that there is an actual problem.  Does that even make sense?  I think I have a very intelligent little boy who feels no need to talk at this point.  So perhaps I'm still in denial.  We had Alex evaluated for early intervention services that are offered through our state of residence this past week.  There was no question about it.  He qualified.

The evaluation was done using the Battelle Developmental Inventory (2nd Edition) (BDI-2).  I am adding the z-scores to this post for documentation purposes only.  And perhaps it will be of resource to another parent searching the world wide web for answers.  A child qualifies in any developmental area if his or her z-score is less than -1.50.    

Adaptive: 0.00
Personal - Social: -0.20
Communication: -2.00
Motor: 0.20
Cognitive: -0.47

So what does this mean?  Our service coordinator has written us an Individualized Family Service Plan (IFSP).  We have elected at this point to have Alex receive in-home speech therapy on a biweekly basis for 60 minutes.  This will be of no cost to us and Alex can remain in the program until the age of three or until he is on target developmentally for his actual age group.  The program will help us to find other resources, should we need them, when Alex ages out of the system.   We are also going to private speech therapy 1x per week for 30 minutes.  We are fortunate that are insurance company is actually covering a portion of these therapy sessions.  We were told they would only be covered if Alex had a pre-existing condition that prompted a greater need for speech therapy.  We have come to find out that being a preemie is a pre-existing condition.  This is great news! (not that Alex was a preemie but that insurance will cover part of the costs)  We had some delay in getting our private speech therapy set-up due to unexpected cancellations.  However, I have been super impressed with our speech therapist on the couple of visits that we have been able to go to.  They do not develop a plan of action until we have met for at least a month.  I will be sure to update once we officially develop a plan.

So where is Alex at this point with talking?  Our little man still only says "Mom" with any regularity though we swear we have heard other "words" during his spontaneous moments of babble.  And the babbling has increased quite a bit over recent weeks.  There is less grunting and screaming and more distinct sounds coming from our little guy.  We are also officially in signing boot camp!  Alex now signs "more", "eat", "milk", "mine OR my turn" on a regular basis without any prompting from us.  We are also working on several other signs with a great amount of vigor.  

So that's all I got at this point.

I would be fibbing if I said I was not worried about our little man.  That's natural for a parent.  I've noticed that I have become very protective of Alex in recent weeks.  I guess you could call it "Mama Bear" syndrome.  I also see a lot of myself in Alex.  So I know some of what our little boy faces down the road.  I just hope that with a bit of early intervention our little man will be talking up a storm in no time and on track with his peers.  And if down the road we are given a  true reason to remain concerned then I will just be glad we took steps early to try and get Alex as much help as we could.

I think this little man is about as perfect as they come these days!

Mary

20 months

Here are some random 20 month thoughts.

Alex started to have some pooping issues again this past month.  We have watched his struggles for so long that we now believe he simply is “scared” to poop and if he has the ability to stop the process then he will figure out a way not to poop.  So we transitioned Alex to a whole milk/coconut milk/almond milk combination and it seems to be helping his digestive problems a bit.  We also increased his dosage of Miralax to 1 tablespoon per day.  All of this has helped a great deal.  There is just no way now for the little man to halt the process!  But at the same time there is zero discomfort associated with pooping so he doesn’t try to stop it anyhow.  I would love to get Alex off of the Miralax but it just doesn’t seem possible anytime soon.  I’m not going to put him through a mind game.

The boys love bath time at the moment.  They now get to play with bath crayons in the tub and they get so excited when it is time to go upstairs.  Jakob is also no longer content with just sitting in the tub.  He literally “swims” back and forth in the bathtub like a little fish.  And this often causes some screams to come from Alex who literally remains sitting in the same position the entire time we are in the tub.  At least Alex has stopped screaming though!  We have had to tape off the lever to flush the toilet in the bathroom though because the boys would not stop flushing the toilet. I was about to make them get jobs so they can pay the water bill.  We don’t use that toilet anyway so it was not big deal.

The bedtime routine is getting a bit more active these days.  I guess that’s what happens when you have little boys in the house.  The days of sitting still to read a story have fallen by the wayside.  But even though I have wiggle worms these days they still do great at bedtime.  We just now spend some “quiet” time reading together on the floor.  This usually involves more turning the pages instead of actually reading the books.  The boys then put their books away before the “bedtime monster” comes out to put them in their cribs.  This involves me chasing them around the bedroom in a fit of giggles as I tickle them over and over again.  But eventually the “bedtime monster” catches them and tosses them in the crib.  I then read a final story before the boys snuggle up amongst their 100 stuffed animals that now occupy their cribs.  I mean literally last night Alex fell asleep on top of a pile of animals.  Boys!    

We have put the boys back in their highchairs at meal times.  The boys had become all but obsessed with the chairs and bench and it was getting to be impossible to get them to sit in their booster seats without screaming to sit on the bench with us.  So back into the highchairs they have gone.  And things seem to be better at the moment.

There was a point this month when Alex became our adventurous eater.  It happened over night.  I has continued this month, with the exception of when the boys were sick, and now Alex will try anything without hesitation.  Some foods this month that Alex seems to really like are edamame, spaghetti, oranges, breakfast burritos, veggie sticks, smoothies, popcorn, dried apricots, fudge cookies, eggs, sausage, grilled cheese, potatoes, dry cereal, bananas, blackberries, and chicken nuggets.  And Jakob has actually become a bit more picky of an eater.  The boy can still pound down the food but he is a lot more picky about what he will eat.  I think he will forever be our meat and potatoes guy!  Jakob can smell a vegetable from 100 miles away.  But give the man some sausage and milk and he could sit for hours.

The boys have moved onto a new favorite television show this month.  Caillou.  It’s actually not too bad.  I think it is a Canadian show.  And there are some really weird aspects to it.  The father is ALWAYS exercising and I don’t think either Mom or Dad have a job.  And Caillou wears the same shirt over and over again.  And the kids are really not supervised that much for being the ages of 2 and 4.  But I guess it’s television.  What are you going to do?  The boys do watch about an hour of television each day.  There is no way around it.  They usually watch about 30 minutes after afternoon nap because they always wake-up in a grumpy mood.  And then we watch about 30 minutes before bed each night.  And really that’s because I have worked all day and I am just worn out.  And I like to snuggle with my boys on the couch.  I love to listen to them laugh as they watch the television show.      

The boys are still obsessed with reading.  They seem to be getting better about not destroying books but randomly a kid will walk up to me with a wayward page in their hand.  No idea.  They don’t really have the attention span to listen to us read an entire story but they love to point out pictures in the books.  Their ability to point to objects in a book is crazy good now!  And it seems to have happened over night.  I sometimes ask them to point to an object I don’t think they know and then I am amazed when they get it right.  They just listen to us all the time.  That’s not true.  They listen to us when they want to listen to us.

The boys still have zero fear.  I never really realized how much of my day would revolve around stopping the boys from trying to kill themselves.  I’m still not sure how we have not ended up in the emergency room.  They climb on anything and everything.  It does not matter how big or how small.  Alex can now actually us the “lip” of the drawers in the kitchen to scale to the top of the kitchen counters.  I swear we have Spiderman on our hands.  But even though their climbing skills are spectacular their balance skills are those of a toddler.  So we often have bumps and bruises when a “good” idea goes wrong.  Just last night Jakob fell of the arm of the living room couch onto our now hardwood floors.  No worries.  He cried for all of 10 seconds before he realized he was missing out on the toy that Alex had just discovered in the play room.

So what don’t I want to forget about the boys this month?

Jakob

* Jakob is always babbling about one thing or another.  It is non-stop talking!
* Jakob loves to help us clean-up.  And sometimes this means making a mess so he can grab a towel and clean-up.
* Jakob gets excited about every little thing!  And it’s an excitement that radiates from his feet to the top of his head.
* Jakob loves to dance.  And this involves twirling himself around in circles like a ballerina.
* Jakob loves art projects.  He will color with crayons, markers, or chalk any time of the day.  I think he does art projects just so he can clean-up.
* Jakob now has a different “word” for Grandma and Grandpa Heitzman.  And points them out in all the pictures around the house.
* Jakob will run up and just want a spontaneous hug.  He will get his hug and then run away really fast.
I love listening to Jakob try to say, “Bye Caillou.”  Actually Jakob says “Bye” to everything and everyone.

Alex

* If you ask Alex, “What sound does a lion make?”, he will put his “claws” up and try to roar like a lion.
* Alex will always smile if you try to take a picture.
* Alex is obsessed with being the one to turn on and off light switches whenever we leave a room.
* Alex loves to watch the dogs eat dinner.  And he sits and waits until they are done so he can put their bowls back.
* Alex has to have a minimum of 20 stuffed animals in his crib at night.
* Alex loves to get his teeth brushed.
* Alex can go down the slid and land on his feet.  Just like Jakob.  But Alex requires a high five at the end of the trip!
* I am fairly certain Alex is going to be left-handed.

Mary

a semi-black cloud

The days since our Christmas celebration have felt jumbled into one never-ending day.  We have had a string of “bad” luck that have simply made for one tired family.  I think we all need a vacation.  I am hesitant to even define our luck as “bad” simply because it has just been tiny “bad” events but over the days those “bad” events tend to pile-up and just plum wear a person out.  So what’s been going on?

* The boys have been sick.
* Mommy and Momma have been sick.
* Alex refuses to sleep when he is sick but Mommy and Momma really want to sleep when we are sick.
* Alex screams when he is sick. A lot.
* Alex just screams in general all the time.  And cries.
* The temper tantrums have increased significantly around our house.  And get even worse when toddlers are sick.
* The boys only drink milk when they are sick.  They went on a food hunger strike for over a week.
* They like to throw food when they get mad.  And food can be expensive.
* Kara got into a (minor) car accident over the weekend.  A teenager got confused and hit Kara head-on (at a slow speed).
* Kara had to call off work because of the accident.  And now she has to make up the time on what was going to be a family day.  Stupid rules.
* Alex and I missed gymnastics class because of the car accident.  And that costs money.
* Our dog Gretel has a slipped disk in her neck.  She is hurting and fairly immobile.
* I drove the passenger side mirror of our other non-damaged car into the garage beam that separates the two sides of our garage.
* We got to chase our other (very fast and healthy) dog around the neighborhood Saturday night in the pouring rain and the dark.  
* I managed to whack my face (hard) on the car door.  The cursed car.  I look like Kara beat me up.  
* Did I mention I proceeded to collide with another car only 48 hours after Kara got in a car accident?  It’s really cursed.  I swerved into the other lane to avoid a teenager who jumped off the curb to yell at the people in the car in front of me.  I appreciate it careless teenager.
* It will be 5 weeks since Alex was able to go to speech therapy due to weather closures, therapist sickness, and holiday closures.
* The communication struggles are really increasing around the house.

So I know I owe you all a 20 month update.  And I am working on it.  But the last few nights I have simply wanted to crawl into bed (wearing a football helmet of course) and let my brain rot while watching Netflix.

You know what’s funny though … There has been a lot of good moments and I’ve still never been happier!

Mary

first haircut

The boys got their first haircuts on January 4th. We went to the local kid-friendly hair salon and the experience went exactly as we had planned in our heads.

Jakob chose to sit in the taxi cab and then he proceeded to scream and squirm about like a wild child.  His level of bravery drops significantly in strange places.  He is the most outgoing toddler in the world but he has to be comfortable with his surroundings.  Otherwise his emotions take control.  But to his credit there was a strange woman coming at him with scissors.  I might scream too.  The hairstylists were amazing though and did not bat an eye at a squirming and screaming child.

And then there was Alex.  You would have thought that Alex was going in for haircut #500 instead of haircut #1.  The boy did not make a noise.  He was our little professional.  Alex chose to sit in the fire truck.  And he just sat patiently as the hairstylist did her job.  He was so stinking cute!  I think Alex was going, “Ladies.  I have been begging you for a trim.  It’s about time.  Thank You.”  You would have thought Alex was going to ask the hair stylist for a shave with a straight razor after the haircut.

It is always amusing to watch the differences in parenting styles in kid centered places such as this hair salon. And this day was no different.

You had parent #1 who would not, under any circumstance, let their son, Little Jimmy, be traumatized by the hair cutting experience.  That parent was still walking around the salon calming shaggy-haired Little Jimmy down when Kara and I departed with our kids.  Then there was parent #2 who also refused to allow Little Sally to scream during the “1st Haircut” experience.  But in this situation it was because there was no way that parent #2 was going to have pictures of the “1st Haircut” experience ruined by a snotty little child.  And of course parent #2 was also still trying to get Little Sally to calm down when Kara and I departed with our kids.  And finally parent #3 actually had the calmest child in the shop.  Why?  Because Little Timmy was sitting in a drug induced sugar coma from the 25 suckers his parent gave to him prior to the haircut.  I think Little Timmy decided by the end of the haircut that he wanted to get his haircut every day of the week.  We left the hair salon at the same time parent #3 left the hair salon.

So how would you define us?

You can thank us for creating the most noise in the salon!  We were busy mumbling “sit down and be quite and get your crazy out of control hair cut … I don’t care if you don’t want to do it … you can’t have hair down to your ankles when you are six” to our precious little boy.  Okay.  That’s not true.  We weren’t actually saying that to Jakob but you better believe I was thinking it in my head.  We know our son and we knew that it would take Jakob approximately 30 seconds to completely forget about the hair cut experience once it was over.  And we were right.  All we had to do was show Jakob the indoor jungle gym and he was back to his old self.  No harm.  No foul. And Kara and I were walking out of the hair salon after only 20 minutes while parent #1 and parent #2 were still roaming around the place with their children.

So which parenting style is the “right” one?  None of them.  They all have their flaws.  And really that’s okay.  It keeps therapists in business.

I will be back soon with a monthly update.

Mary