Kids and Water, They Just Go Together

This afternoon was the perfect afternoon to go to the splash pad near our house.  The temp was in the mid-70s, bright sun, a little breeze.  It was just gorgeous.  It's a bit of a scary place to take the boys because it's not fenced in and they tend to run off in different directions.  But water is like a magnet for them, so at least I could count on them staying in or very near the water, and not taking off for the street.

At first they didn't stray too far away.

Then they got braver.

Aliza just chilled for awhile.  Then she spotted her friend Zoie from a couple of neighborhoods down, and the two girls scampered all over the place.

The boys were vaguely interested in what Aliza was doing, until they found this waterfall.  Then it was all over, they were in love.

(These are my tiny-waisted and absent-hipped 5-year-olds wearing 2T swimsuits, by the way.)

Here's me trying to get a picture of AJ's cute feet in the water.  He couldn't manage to stand still for as long as it took my tiny point-and-shoot to get ready to take it.  I don't bring the big fancy camera to the splash pad since I know I'll be running around in the water with the kids; I need something that can fit in my pocket.

Aliza's very sisterly, trying to help AJ not lose his balance on top of this mini waterfall.  As I'm snapping this shot I'm having visions of the two of them toppling headfirst.

It's really a photogenic little park.  I'm going to have to go back with helpers so I can focus more on taking the pictures and less on scurrying around averting injurious disasters.

When we got home we all had that tired-from-the-fresh-air-and-sunshine feeling, and were both starved and thirsty.  Everyone ate and drank silently for quite awhile.

Later I congratulated myself that not one of us looked the slightest bit sun-kissed, meaning I'd done a thorough job of slathering sunscreen on everyone.  Excuse me while I pat myself on the back.

Getting Old

You won't see a lot of pictures of me here (although I'll try to appear occasionally) because lately I'm feeling really old-looking.

I'm trying to figure out at what point I started to look tired all the time.  It was sometime between now, and when the boys were born, because I have a picture or two when they were babies where I don't look too exhausted (or at least no more exhausted than any other mom of infant twins and a 2 year old).  So that would make it.....sometime between 35 and 40.  Look out girls, that's when things changed, albeit subtly.  Something minute and vague changed about my eyes.  More and more they are buried into my face.  It's not the bags under the eyes, those come and go based on the amount of sleep and how good the makeup is.  It's the forehead, I think.  It's creeping down over my eyes.

I notice it in other people my age, too.  Thanks to Facebook I am in contact with lots of people I've known for 30 years who are my age, and I can see the same forehead-creep in some of their faces.  I can't decide if that's depressing or comforting.  I guess in order to avoid a trip to negative town, I'll find it comforting.  It happens to a lot of us.

But not all.  Lots of 40 year olds have perfectly fine foreheads.  What causes this?  Is it genetics or stress?  Or more likely, a combination of both?  I have a tendency to blame it on the kids, and the Fragile X gene.  I blame a lot of my little quirks on the Fragile X gene I carry.  And quite justifiably, as many FX gene carriers have issues with anxiety, depression, and infertility (which of course can cause anxiety and depression....).  It would probably really be reaching to try to blame aging on the FX gene, though.

While I hope it's not completely hereditary, I bet Aliza can look forward to sinking, drooping eyes and forehead in about 30 years.  Hopefully she'll have a sense of humor about it, and a fulfilling enough life not to be bothered too much.

How To Get Gum Out of Hair

Today Aliza got gum in her hair.  I had some ideas how to get it out, but I googled "how to get gum out of hair" just to see what the internet thought about it.  Why not use this endless source of information I keep connected and at my fingertips in my kitchen all day long?

I found a site that listed tons of optional gum-removal tools such as peanut butter, toothpaste, cooking oil, mayonnaise, cold cream, hair mousse, WD-40, ice, vaseline, alcohol, hand lotion, eucalyptus oil, adhesive remover, and (!!!!) chloroform!  "Honey, can you run to the store and get me some chloroform?  Thanks!"  You just gotta love the internet!

I chose cooking oil, and it was oily but I have to say the gum was easy to tease out of her hair after dousing it.  Of course I made her stand naked in the bathroom rather than get oil on her clothes, and a shower was required immediately afterward.  But, it was relatively pain free.  Too bad, I probably should have made her suffer more, to deter her from allowing a bubble to pop in her hair again!

Sentimental Saturday

This is my version of wordless Wednesday.  I love looking at old pictures, and seeing how everyone has grown and changed.

My grandma Jewel (sitting, far left) and her brothers and sisters.

Aliza and my cousin Katie, at my brother's wedding.  They are both so grown up now.  Katie is getting married in just 3 weeks!

My friends Mike & Kandy and their baby Kieran, when he was one day old.  I just love this picture, the two new parents comforting their brand new little boy.

Aliza, having a drink from the sprinkler in the cutest swimsuit ever in the history of cute little girl swimsuits.

  

My little cowboys and their Grandpa Jim.  I love pictures like this where people are laughing and having a great time, and not paying any attention to the lady with the camera.

Aliza and her friend Ellie picking flowers.  It's always amazing to see how little they were together, and how much they've changed and grown since.  Yep, I guess I'm just a sentimental old fool!

One of the first pictures I took of the boys standing up.  We waited so long for them to pull up to a standing position!  They were around 15 months old.

Things I Love; A Short List

The way the lazy-boy creaks rhythmically when I rock the boys before they go to bed

My daughter's green eyes

Hershey bars

The movie Up in the Air and the book The Forgotten Garden

Cold salads in the summer

The way AJ greets everyone when we enter a room with "hiiiiiiiiii" drawn out, like he's a game show host.

The way Zack bids everyone "buh-bye!  buh-bye!" whenever anyone, anywhere, leaves.  And sometimes to hint to someone that he'd like him to leave....

This woman's blog:  Enjoying the Small Things

My beautiful niece Jocelyn

Potty Training Finals

Well, it went like this.

Friday morning at 8:30 we began.  Zack sat on the potty for 10 minutes, and got 5 minutes off.  For about the first hour.  He watched Diego videos to his heart's content.  I mean, why guy doesn't want to have a TV in the bathroom?

Any time he was off the potty he was wearing a urine alarm.  This is a contraption that sits in his underwear and sounds an alarm at the slightest hint of wetness.  Supposedly to get him to learn to stop peeing when he begins, and run to the potty.

Then we progressed to 5 minutes on, 15 minutes off.  No action.  No success, but no accidents for the first couple of hours.

We fed him.  We watered him.

We gave him breaks, where we fed and watered him some more.

Day One passed without much to report.  Lots of accidents, one success (if you can call it that.  Ever heard the one about how if you give a million monkeys typewriters, one of them is bound to type the Bible?  No?  Well, it's about odds.  And odds are, anyone who spent as much time as Zack did on the potty that day would have at some point done something in it.)

Anyway, on Day Two, the urine alarm malfunctioned.  It performed its duties but then the alarm would not shut off.  Anytime we plugged it in, it was going off.  So much for potty training technology.  So we went without and just watched him closely, and as you can probably imagine, more accidents on Day Two.

On the log sheet I had to report each time he sat on the potty and circle whether it was "self-initiated", "accident", or "success".  It was never self-initiated.  I can understand why you'd count something that appears completely random as a success, but if by Day Three he's not self-initiating, or even acting like he grasps what we are trying to do here, it gets pretty discouraging.

It's just not working.  He's not having the Light Bulb Moment I was hoping for, and I'm out of my mind with trying to keep him on a regular potty-time schedule.  Yes, I do realize it's only been a few days.  But if there's one thing I've learned in the past few years, it is that I have to do what keeps us all sane.  Zack should not have to scream that much during the day, and I should not have to fight tears while I hold him down on the toilet, trying to avoid letting him sink his teeth into my arm yet again.  And AJ and Aliza should not have to witness it.  This isn't doing anyone any good.

Zack and his brother are at each other's throats constantly, and I mean constantly.  The only reason I have time to do this now is because they are asleep.  Every moment they aren't closely supervised, they are wrestling and tearing at each other.  When I separate them they bite and pinch me.  They both are so scratched, bit, and bruised they look like they fell off the roof into prickly bushes.  Pictures do not do this activity justice, I'm going to have to get it on video.

I know I've mentioned the wrestling in posts before, but I didn't talk about how frustrating or exhausting it is.  I didn't mention the injuries they give each other, or the way their repeated attacks on me grate away at any patience I might have started the day with.

I do hope that now that we've halted the potty routine, we might all be able to settle into a more enjoyable summer.  I want to appreciate my kids and love the fun things they do and say.  I want to post about the beauty and joy we are finding in each other this summer.  I do hope the time of tears and bruises is ending.

False Alarm

Zack is fine.  Ears, throat, lungs, all fine.  We were right.  No fever equals a healthy kid.  Darn nonverbal kids are more manipulative than their talking counterparts.

Speaking of alarms (ever heard of a urine alarm?  I hadn't either), we are deep in the throes of potty training Zack and will update more on that when I reach a point where I'm not spending such a large percentage of my day watching a kid sit on the potty, begging him to pee.

All Signs Pointing to OUCH

Zack's ear infection is worse.  The poor kid has been in pain for days.

I don't know this for sure, but I'm guessing that's what the doctor is going to tell us this afternoon.

This morning Zack's therapist came to tell me he was sitting at the table, hitting himself in the head.  She wanted to know if this is normal for him, or what.......and I sighed, because while it's not exactly an everyday occurrence, it isn't totally unusual behavior for him.  And I sighed because it's just the latest mystery to try to unravel.  The mystery of the day.

Zack does tend to bang his head on the headboard of his bed or on the wall at night, often in his sleep.  One of us will go in and move him and usually he stops.  Last night he banged his head on the wall, and was up and awake from around 3 AM to around 5 AM.  He didn't act like he was in pain, he didn't cry, he was just unsettled and restless, and looking back on it now, he probably was hurting.  And come to think of it, he's actually done that two nights in a row.

Looking back now it's pretty clear that is what his trouble was, and we just kept trying to force him to lay down and begging him to go back to sleep.  We base the decision on whether to give ibuprofen on the fever status.  Is there one, or isn't there?  There was not, so in our sleep-deprived, brain-fogged states we assumed all was well with him and he was just being a little difficult.  My poor boy!

Things I Never Thought I'd Hear Myself Say

Last night I went out for dinner at the Rainforest Cafe with Aliza, my friend Amy, and her daughter Maddy.  Maddy and Aliza were messing around, being silly little girls, when I had occasion to hear myself utter -

"Please do not touch your eyeball."

A Small Thing, Yet a Big Deal

AJ started doing something new this week.  Yes, this week while he's been sick and not having therapy.  It seems like a small thing now that I sit down to describe it, but it's thrilling to watch him.  It feels like a window opened, a new pathway to communication with him.

He points at someone now, while saying his/her name.

Last night he wanted me to get out of the computer chair so he could sit there.  I saw him pause and then point at me and say "mom?"  I said "what, honey?  What do you want?"  And he grabbed my left leg around the thigh and started pulling.  I got it immediately -- he wanted the chair!

Later, when it was medicine time, I went toward him with the bowl of pills resting in applesauce, and he giggled and pointed over at Zack who was sitting on daddy's lap, and said at the same time "Zack."  He always wants Zack to go first.

He's been able to say "Zack" and "mom" and dozens of other words, but he says them on command.  Not in ordinary life situations to convey a meaning.  It's sensational, to see him do that.

Starting the Summer Out Right

My twin boys have an ear infection and pneumonia, one illness each.  Don't they know this isn't the best way to begin the summer?

In other news, here are some pictures from an outing a few days ago (back when everyone was healthy).  We bathed and dressed up the kids and went looking for a pretty park to take some pictures.  The sun was shining, everyone was happy.  We drove and drove.  About an hour later, the sun was hiding, it was threatening to rain, and everyone was sick of being in the car.  So we stopped at this park near Lake of the Isles, which turned out to be super fun.

You are never too dressed up to dig in the dirt.

I want to climb up this crazy rope contraption, but I also really want to chew on this nail....

The zip cord was awesome, but the mount for it was a little sand-covered and slippery.  So Aliza and a few random kids formed a chain so they could bring the seat up to the top.  What's gonna work?  Teamwork!

Once you got started through, it was totally worth the ride!

It's nice sometimes to ponder the experience, before actually sliding down.

Not really appreciating that "one at a time" rule.

Once we all are back at 100% good health, we'll have more fun outings, I predict.

Stuff Everywhere

Now this blog looks like my house -- stuff everywhere, nothing put away, objects are mismatched and thrown in such disarray that it's disturbing and distracting.  Sorry.  I saw there was a new template designer and I got all excited.  I'll work on fixing it in the morning.

101.something

It started Monday evening.  AJ finished his therapy at 7, and he felt a little warm.  I took his temp.  It was 101.something.  Not terribly impressive to a mom who has seen 104.something more times than I can count, but definitely too high.  Tuesday is cancelled; no school, no therapy.

Tuesday he continues to have a fever off and on.  It's strange how he can go for hours with a normal temp and nearly normal behavior, but then suddenly he'll curl up in a chair, and our ear thermometer will say 101 or even 102.something.  He has a dose of Motrin to take the fever and achiness away to help him sleep at night, and generally at least once during the day.

Wednesday is another day off for him.  See, both our therapy team and school have the same fever rule - he must be fever free (and not as a result of medication) for 24 hours before he can return to his routine.  Wednesday I keep him Motrin-ed up and he's pretty happy and healthy all day long, but in the afternoon I let the Motrin wear off to see what will happen, and sure enough, that evening he curls up in a chair, looking miserable.  101.something.

Thursday morning we go straight in to see a pediatrician.  I begin by explaining the Fragile X and autism, the fact that he's nonverbal and somewhat resistant to pain.  We've seen this doctor before, I think she might remember us!  She checks his ears and throat and sees nothing out of the ordinary.  She listens to his lungs and says he sounds a little "gunky" and she'd like him to have an x-ray.  Oh boy!

But it actually goes pretty well.  I wear an apron, he wears a waist-apron, I hold him still and they get a front and side view, no problem.  The lab lady also comes in to get a blood sample, which is the most painful thing we ever do -- while she squeezes drop after drop out of his finger, I allow him to chew my arm raw.

After a few minutes the doctor comes back in and says she'd like to feel his tummy.  I get him to lay down on the table and she pushes and squishes his tummy around while he giggles.  Then she says he can sit up.

She says the x-ray showed a little bit of something in the lungs, not much, and she might not normally prescribe anything for it but since he's on his 4th day of a fever, he should take an antibiotic.  But the lungs weren't the most interesting part of the x-ray.  His liver is oddly shaped, apparently.  The x-ray went well down into his abdomen and she showed me how a normal liver should be shaped (blob-roundish), and how AJ's is shaped (long).  She said the size seemed fine, she didn't think it seemed enlarged, it just isn't sitting where she would have expected to se it.

My first thought was, let's x-ray the other one -- I want to see if his twin brother has one like it.....

My second thought was, well, it's certainly not the first thing about them that's not like other kids.....

She's going to send it to a radiologist and get his opinion on whether it's anything to look into further.  She doesn't think there's anything wrong with it necessarily, she didn't feel anything abnormal in his belly, so I shouldn't worry.  Right!  Thanks!

Have to go now, my little one is whiney.  So much for the last week of school being my time off to relax before summer begins.

Kindergarten Transition

The meeting was last Thursday and it went very well, everyone was really nice.  Not that I'm surprised.  It was attended by a kindergarten teacher (though not necessarily the teacher my boys will have), the autism classroom teacher, the special ed. director for the school, their current preschool teacher, and the principal came in for a short time.  Mostly they all just asked a lot of questions about the boys, what they were like, what they could do, and what I hope for them to get out of kindergarten.  We discussed whether they'd go half days or full (half days), and whether I'd prefer morning or afternoon kindergarten (morning).  I'd prefer mornings as they are just at their best during that time -- most relaxed and focused.  They may or may not get mornings, that is yet to be determined.  What?  You mean I'm not going to get exactly what I want?

But then I thought, right now they go to afternoon preschool and it has worked out fine.

I was thrilled to hear that they have four kindergarteners starting in the autism class in the fall (well so far, that number could change, I'm told), and the other two are also kids from their current preschool class -- kids they already know, who already know them!  How lucky is that!

The kindergarten teacher who attended would be an awesome teacher for them, I'm sure, because her name happens to be Jennifer McCarthy.  Get it? Jenny McCarthy!  I can't tell you how much giggling I've done about that one this weekend.  I'd love for my autistic boys to have Jenny McCarthy as their teacher.....maybe she can "cure" them!

P.S. - I sincerely hope this doesn't offend anybody.  I try to stay away from topics of controversy and politics -- but this was just too funny for me to let it go by without comment!

Wrestling

Aw, aren't we being sweet together?

Well, sort of sweet, anyway.

 

Wait a minute, that doesn't look so good.

Ouch, that's gotta hurt!

Diaper Bash

Today I went to Target and came home with 300 diapers.

With my cart stacked so high with diaper boxes I couldn’t see over it, I passed a couple of young new moms with their tiny singletons in their pretty carseats, set neatly in the cart, browsing through the baby aisle. They look me and my baggage over and one of them exclaims, “wow, are they having a diaper sale?”

In the span of a second I thought “no, miss, they aren’t having a sale. My twin sons have Fragile X Syndrome and are not potty trained. When a child with a disability turns 4 and is not potty trained, it's called "incontinence" and the state pays for the diapers.  Once a month I come here and fill a prescription for 150 diapers for each of my sons, which comes to around 300 diapers in my cart.

"I was you once.  I was young and had just one tiny baby.  Seems like yesterday, and at the same time, a million years ago."

That was what I thought.  What I said was "I have twins."  Smiling and walking, and moving on.