Compliment?

I was tucking Michael into bed tonight and told him in a rather sappy voice, "Goodnight, Little One. I love you." In a rather sappy voice, he returned, "Goodnight, Little One....I mean Big One. I love you too."

Competing Priorities

I'm a stay-at-home mom right now and for the foreseeable future. I try to spend a lot of time playing with my kids. In an ideal world I'd do some sort of special, planned activity every day (art, cooking, building, etc). I don't actually do that every day of course, but I try - or I used to.

Ever since Ava's diagnosis I've been doing all of the things a parent needs to do in such a situation: phone calls, research, and taking Ava to appointments or having appointments here. It all consumes an extraordinary amount of time. Then, on top of all of that, I'm trying to research as an SLP to guide my work with Ava. I'm studying the disorder of CAS, learning about the various approaches to intervention, purchasing and reading books on the subject, and beginning to make therapy materials.

Instead of playing with my children or planning activities to do with them, I find myself at the computer most of the morning. I stop to kiss boo boos, get drinks, mediate conflicts, help various children potty, and make meals. And I try to tell myself that I'm encouraging independent play. After all, they've been playing with each other more. Yesterday they built a fort out of chairs and blankets and played in it pretty much on their own. They travel upstairs and play in their rooms or downstairs to the playroom in the basement. All of that is good. But I still feel guilty that I'm not doing more with them right now.

Life will balance out again eventually, right?

Experimentation

You hear that toddlers and preschoolers can be forces of chaos and destruction. I read a blog post recently by one of my favorite bloggers about her toddler who took a pair of scissors to their sofa and his preschool-aged brother who tried to tape up the evidence. In general my children do not do these things. I have to count my blessings as they come.

However, in the past week Ava has taken a crayon to our basement playroom wall. Crayon over about four feet of one of the beautiful walls in the playroom with the gorgeous murals painstakingly painted by their grandfather and a good family friend over about 5-10 total days of work spread out over a couple of months. This picture is of one small section. I have not yet tried to remove the crayon. I've never needed to before. Do I just take a wet washcloth to it?

Then after two hours of not napping, I went upstairs to fetch Michael and discovered that he had stuffed multiple wads of toilet paper into the bathroom sink drain (which is missing the little drain cap thing that should be there). I did manage to extract them with my good tweezers. Then his father noticed that he had apparently used a hard object to bang a series of dents into the drawer of the nice bedside table in his room.

All children seemed appropriately regretful when the error of their ways was pointed out to them and we’ve had no repeats. Still, where on earth is this coming from?

To change or not?

Let's briefly digress to a totally different topic. Michael will be eligible for our local school district’s preschool program in the fall. Registration is at the end of this month. I can’t decide if we should switch him or not. Right now Ava and Michael both attend a local high quality day care two mornings a week. For the most part we’re happy with the program although it is expensive.

Pros of switching:

1. Well, first of all, it’s a lot cheaper. I could send Michael all five days a week for only a little over half of what his two days of day care costs now. Given that all these new therapy bills are coming in, paying less for preschool would be nice.

2. He’d be in preschool with his future elementary school classmates and have the opportunity to begin developing hopefully long term relationships and friendships.

3. He’d begin to get familiar with and comfortable with his future elementary school.

4. He’d be following an actual preschool curriculum rather than a daycare. He’d have to be more independent and follow a more structured routine. This would start to prepare him for the transition to kindergarten early.

Cons of switching:

1. Purely logistically, it would be a mess. I’d be dropping kids off at two separate places at two different times and the same for picking them up. They can attend daycare any time between 6:30am and 1pm. The daycare feeds them both breakfast and lunch. So I drop them both off together at about 7:45am and pick them both up at 12:15pm and the school’s taken care of two meals for me. If I switch Michael I’ll need to feed him, but not her breakfast. Then drop her off at 7:45 and drive to the preschool and drop him off at 8:15. Then I’ll have to pick him up at 11:15 and take him home and feed him lunch. Then put him back in the car to pick Ava up at 12:15. If I wait one more year to switch him to the school district’s preschool, they can both make the transition together. He’d still have a full year of preschool at the local school district before starting kindergarten.

2. He likes his current school. He likes his teacher. He likes the more nurturing atmosphere of the day care. I like the idea of more free play and less structure. He’s mature and smart and articulate for his age, but he’s still just a three year old boy and I think he deserves another year of play.

So, there it is. Decision needs to be made in the next week. I’d ask for opinions, but I’m pretty much the only one reading my blog and I don’t know what my opinion is yet. :-)

I’ll probably end up registering him just to reserve a spot. Why make a decision today when you can find a way to postpone the decision for several months? I can always decide not to switch him in the fall. I’d just have to be willing to give up the $50 deposit. Then the question is how many days? Definitely not all five, the question is 2, 3, or 4?

Genes

Well, my husband is my perfect partner. That sounds terribly sappy, but it’s true all the same. I would not trade him for anything. I think we combine in a way that makes amazing, sweet, smart, kind children. However, those children do not have typical language development.

Ava has been the main topic here because we’re dealing with her diagnosis of apraxia, but that story actually begins with Michael. My pregnancy with Michael was completely normal and full term. Natural, uncomplicated birth. Healthy 8 lb, 6 oz. baby boy. He did have rather severe newborn jaundice which wasn’t well treated, but that’s a story for another time. He screamed for months. I kid you not. Somewhere 6 months in or so I remember asking my husband if he would ever be happy and awake at the same time. I was worried even then. He didn’t make eye contact. He was more interested in the lights or ceiling fan than in faces. We didn’t get the smiles or coos. There was very little interaction. Almost no babbling. He didn’t even make vowel sounds until 8 months of age. When he’d play with toys he was more interested in the screws on the bottom of the toy than in actually playing with it. He wasn’t interested in turn taking games like pat-a-cake. Red flags were everywhere and a speech-pathologist I saw them. But I was a new mom and insecure, and no one else seemed to be listening.

He had no words at his one year pediatrician visit. Our pediatrician told me if he didn’t have three words at his 15 month visit we’d begin testing. He had three- barely - at that visit and they all had come in that week. (Ava was born, incidentally only 2 weeks after that 15 month pediatrician visit). When he did begin talking, his first sounds were very atypical. He had /k/ and /g/ and enjoyed making clicking sounds with his mouth. I was very concerned. And about more than just his speech.

And then it just clicked. The words came more and more quickly. Ten words, then 50, then more than we could count. Two to three word combinations came between 20-22 months of age and he was using 3-5 word sentences at two. At three he’s pretty much completely intelligible to strangers and using long sentences with complex structures and vocabulary.

It was our own little miracle. A breathtaking relief. And the experience completely colored the way we looked at Ava’s development.

Expanding Horizons

My son is a little over three years old. I am watching him explore his world and his place in it. It’s extraordinary to watch his world expand little by little and see him gain confidence. We waited a long time to switch him from his crib to a toddler bed simply because he was so happy in his crib. He would play happily for an hour before falling asleep and another hour after he woke up before he would call for someone to get him. He slept well. We didn’t see any need to change that prematurely. However, as he approached his third birthday we decided to make the switch and he was excited about it. It made me a little sad though that I would go up to get him an hour or so after he woke up and find him still in the bed. It didn’t even occur to him that he could crawl out on his own.

Then one day it just happened. He left the crib. And chaos ensued. He’d still happily play in his room…but for two or three hours. And never fall asleep. Overnight he went from taking two and a half hour naps to no naps at all. I loved that he was enjoying a new level of independence. I was still essentially getting a break in the afternoon since he happily spent all of that time in his room, but he still needed the sleep. I finally found a solution. I let him play for anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour and then I go sit in a chair in his room. That effectively pins him to his bed and he falls asleep within 10 minutes. And sleeps for at least 2 hours.

Concurrently with all of this we’ve been potty training. He’s been day trained for quite some time, but he began showing interest in taking himself to the bathroom rather than going in his nap/bedtime diaper if he was awake. So we told him that if he needs to go to the bathroom he can leave his room and do that quietly and return to bed. A whole new level of chaos has ensued. Minutes after leaving the room doors begin to slam and running feet can be heard. Last night we put him to bed at 8pm and he was still awake when I was going to bed at 10:30. And that time is now spent entering and leaving his room. Another favorite is peering down at us from the upstairs balcony in a manner he thinks is quiet. I have no idea what he thinks he is doing, but he also goes into and out of his closet slamming the sliding doors open and shut each time. Feet thunder back and forth over our heads.

I love the independence and exploration. I love that his world had grown from the confines of his crib, to toddler bed, to his room, to the areas outside his room. However, I miss the beautiful sleep. And I’m pretty sure he does too. I’ll give him a week or so to see if the exploration grows old on its own, but if not I guess I’ll have to do the sitting with him trick at night time too.