We'd like to thank the Academy, Larabars, whole milk, and an increase in her activity level which is in turn leading to an increase in her appetite. Not only does she eat three meals a day, but she also eats a snack.
I mean, I had to sit behind her and hold her butt and also throw her blankie up three stairs at a time but she did it. And you know what the best part is?
So, people have been asking me how *I* have been doing. And I'm fine, really, but I tell them I'm a little bored because I suspect that's what they want to hear.
Mostly I'm not terribly bored. I mean, this isn't as intellectually stimulating as trying to get 26 adults to identify a thesis statement when they have no idea either what a thesis statement is or what it does despite their insistence that they have advanced high school diplomas, but I'm not horribly bored. I've been able to write more, which is kind of awesome, and I'm getting a lot of good stuff done for Lulu, which is super-awesome.
Also, I've been able to clean out three closets.
But since people wonder what I *do* all day, I thought I'd write it down. Apparently, they think I simply wipe bottom, drool, and then sing ABCs. It's close, but not quite.
And so, I present to you, with only a little more ado, a Mom in Motion Study.
To get you in the mood, you probably need to listen to this:
My day begins between 5 and 5:30am. I wake up after some crazy-ass dream (last night, I dreamed we were living in a townhouse with a teeny-tiny yard, and we bought a horse) and check for breathing.
Me: Check
T: Check.
Lulu . . . . . . . . . come on kid, give me something . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Lulu? . . . . . Ok, Check.
Then I carefully get out of bed and head for the bathroom in the hall. Then coffee. And then?
IT'S MOMMY'S FREE TIME EVERYBODY'S ASLEEP HOORAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Some mornings (in fact, many mornings) MFTEAH doesn't happen. Some mornings Lulu wakes up before I can even get out of bed, so we go right to:
EVERYBODY IN THE BIG BED SNUGGLE TIME AWESOME HAPPY.
This will last until I get kicked in the face, or someone looks at the clock and realizes that if both adults wish to be washed and dressed this morning that we need to get up, or my bladder is about to give out.
Then we get up and I get Lucy her morning beverage and pull her hair into her ponytail in case she decides to fight the medicine and we commence the medicine taking. Daddy is normally in charge of this, because she fights him less, and I am not going to take away a job he is clearly better at than me.
And then I bathe and dress and dry my hair and then we switch and I try to entertain a toddler while making the beds and dressing her. Then we attempt breakfast, though we're rarely successful, especially after we've just shoved 3 teaspoons of anti-epileptics into her. And then Daddy goes to work, and we cry, and then it's time to try to watch the weather forecast and get a nebulizer treatment.
You should probably picture an adult woman trying to herd kittens into a sack with one hand. It's a little like that.
And then we commence to working on our homework. Lulu needs to learn to:
1. Stack
2. Scribble
3. Walk up the stairs
These are hard things. The stacking is coming along nicely -- we're up to three blocks. We like to make some dots on the paper and then try to gnaw on our crayon and we ARE SO MAD when Mommy takes them away.
The stairs are HARD, you guys. There is this shit called gravity and it is a bitch. Lucy can make it up a step, but a lot of times she can then fall off of said step. She never gets hurt (it's really just surprise) but she gets really scared. However, it's good for her, because she needs to understand that there's a certain amount of danger and risk in going up the stairs. I just hope I'm not creating too fearful a kid.
Anyway, then it's 9:00 and it is naptime. So we lay down and I get the computer and I check my work email and my regular email and then I get to write.
Dudes, I have been so prolific in the past two months. I write a humor column for an online magazine, and I wrote two in addition to all of my blogging. And I started a book, but then again who isn't writing a book? But anyway, I get some stuff DONE. And I also do the laundry and prep dinner and race around doing, well, stuff during naptime.
Then she wakes up. Back to homework.
11:30am. Lunch! Throw raisins on the floor! Throw cheese on the floor! Throw crackers on the floor! Eat some carrots!
12noon: While Mommy is cleaning up, eat raisins, cheese, and crackers off the floor.
12:05: Daddy give Lucy her afternoon meds. Tears.
12:15. Sesame Street is brought to you by the Letter C, the number 8, and some the highest people EVER. I'm waiting for a segment called "Puff, Puff, Pass."
1:15: Naptime. Back to writing, emailing, blogging, hemming pants, cleaning out a closet, etc.
2:00: Tell Lucy that she has not had enough nap. Nice try.
3:30: Shit. Is she ever going to wake up?
3:45: Hi, Baby! Let's play!
4:30: Daddy comes home! Time to make dinner.
5:00: Dinner! Throw raisins on the floor! Throw crackers on the floor! Eat some beans! Chew up a roll and spit it in Mommy's hand!
5:30: Fussy time. Tired again. Daddy reads books. Mommy tries to figure out what to defrost for tomorrow's dinner.
6:00pm: All the books go ON THE FLOOR.
6:10: Lucy wants to read Humpty Dumpty. WHERE IS HUMPTY DUMPTY?
6:12: Lucy is sitting on Humpty Dumpty. I attempt to explain how she can't read the book that is under her bottom. Fail. Tears. I pull her into my lap for soothing and rescue the damn book.
6:20: We read Humpty Dumpty.
6:21: And again.
6:22: And again.
6:23: And again.
6:24: And again.
6:25: I put Humpty down and tell Lucy to find another book. She chooses Little Pookie.
6:26: We read Little Pookie.
6:27: And again.
6:28: And again.
6:29: And again.
6:30: And again.
We repeat with other books until 7:00. Then we take meds and a bath and go snuggle in front of Jeopardy with some milk.
8:00pm: Brush teeth, bedtime. Also baby's bedtime. Yaaaaaawn.
8:30: TV. I normally watch about half of a show and then fall asleep, which leads to some wonky dreams. . . . .
And I am afraid of feathers.
I might, might, MIGHT get to go back to work.
See, today, we met again with the folks from the local government who are going to offer services to Lucy. They brought in a coordinator, a registered nurse, a physical therapist, and an occupational therapist. A lot of people looked at Lucy. The news was what we expected -- some good, some bad. Her actual chronological age is 17.5 months.
Social and emotional: 21 months. Very good.
Verbal: 24 months. EXCELLENT.
Gross motor: 16 months. This was actually surprising, because we thought she was more delayed than that.
Fine motor: 14 months. Disappointing. We thought she was not quite so delayed here.
The physical therapist helped us understand some things about Lucy in regards to the delay, which I'll explain in a moment -- but for those of you with kids, or considering kids, I really recommend any book by Dr. Sears. He has a philosophy of trying to get behind your kid's eyes, which can really help you understand your child. Why does Lucy fight sleeping alone in a crib? It's scary when I walk away -- she's never been alone in her life, EVER. It's so much better if she can see another human being.
That being said, Travis and I don't really understand what it's like to be in her body. In addition to the seizures, Lucy has a condition called hypotonia. Essentially, her muscles and ligaments are extremely loose and flexible, which doesn;t sound necessarily bad, but she can't always control them, which is bad. This isn't a muscle thing, which we could counter with exercises, but a brain-to-body thing. When she was first learning to walk, she would pull up and take a step and then just Bambi out.
The PT explained that kids with hypotonia learn not to trust their bodies. They don't trust that the messages they get will be accurate, and they don't trust that their bodies will be there for them. Understanding this really helped me understand a lot about Lucy -- why she doesn't want to use a fork -- because she doesn't trust that she'll be able to. That she doesn't want to stack blocks, because it's really frustrating -- but she'll stack anything with a hole on it on her wooden ring-stack toy. She knows she's supposed to do these things, and part of her wants to, but mostly she's either afraid to or she's given up. I'm so sad about this, but at least we know what to work on now.
Lucy's homework:
1. Stack blocks.
2. Scribble with crayon.
3. Try to walk up the stairs.
BUT, while talking with the service coordinator today, I discovered that for some reason, Lucy is eligible for medicaid. (Just Lucy. Not us.) Which means that she might then be eligible for home health services. Which might mean that the person who comes to take care of her everyday might be an LPN.
Which might mean that I get to go back to work.
I KNOW. I'm so happy I'm sharing happyfuntimes with all of you.
Melly is a writer, a teacher, a wife, and a mother (though some of her students would insist that is only half of the word) living in Virginia. She has described her experiences as a mother as “Ernest Has a Baby.” She likes twinkies, shoes, reading books, and Chuck Norris jokes. A devoted couch potato, she has taken to online shopping like a frog to hopping, using it to fill dull spots during bad reality tv and shows in which “people wear weird costumes and talk funny” (this is her husband’s appraisal of shows and movies she will like). Despite having joined the Twilight bandwagon incredibly late, she is staunchly Team Jacob. She used to be funny, and then her life turned into an episode of House, MD. Her life is absurd. You can read about it here.
