Multiple Hats

Today is one of those days when I am wearing multiple hats. I usually use that term only figuratively as I actually do NOT like wearing hats of any type, but tonight I'll be wearing my doctoral tam (oh so much better than the mortarboard kind) as I'm hooding one of my graduate students at the commencement ceremony this evening. My morning was quite the contrast as I found myself covered in flour and such due to making Christmas sugar cookies with Nadia. I am actually not a fan of sugar cookies. I'd MUCH rather have chocolate chip or peanut butter, but these really were pretty good. She suggests putting some cream cheese frosting on top, and the next time I make these I'll have to give that a whirl as it would probably make them even tastier. Nadia had a blast decorating several dozen cookies. It was good exercise with her fine motor skills as it's tricky not to just dump a huge amount of sprinkles onto one cookie. Unfortunately at one point Ian got ahold of one jar of red and green nonpareils and spilled almost the entire bottle. They are really hard to get up off the floor as those little balls just keep rolling all over the place. What a mess!!! Although I'm not anxious for the kids to grow up too quickly, I do think making Christmas cookies will be a little less messy when they get a little older, or at least they'll be able to help clean up the mess! My kitchen looked like a total disaster by the end, but all is back to normal now.  Unfortunately in the middle of all that cookie making I forgot to call the Pediatrician between 12:00-12:30 to request a referral. I remembered at 11:00 and 1:30. Hopefully I'll remember at the correct time on Monday.

The holidays are fun, but they can be exhausting. On Wednesday I mailed all our Christmas cards. On Thursday I finished the shopping. There were 32 people on my list to buy Christmas gifts for, and many of those I was also buying birthday presents at the same time because we don't see them often so we give them their (wrapped) birthday presents at Christmas. They don't open them until their birthdays. It saves on shipping costs, but it means my shopping list is really long this time of year. I'm also happy to say that 90% of the presents are also wrapped. Whew.

One aspect of motherhood that I had greatly anticipated was reading to the kid, including chapter books. Last Saturday I got out Charlotte's Web and started reading it to Nadia. She sits and colors at the kitchen table while I read 1-3 chapters of the book at a time. Bliss. We are both enjoying it, and thankfully Ian usually plays by himself while she colors and I read the book out loud. I haven't decided which book to read next, but it's exciting to think of all the many books I can read to her in the years to come. I'm sure we'll read Charlotte's Web again in the future as some of it is going over her head at this point. I used to read to my middle schoolers so I'm planning on reading to them even when they are able to read chapter books themselves. For example, my sixth graders loved it when I read them The Hobbit.

Christmas Trees

Athough "Frosty" is the Christmas song Ian sings the most frequently, another one that he sings quite often is "Oh Christmas tree." He even sings the line "how lovely are your branches." Last night Nadia and I made brownies. I had seen an idea on a blog for making brownies into little Christmas trees. Today I went a bit nuts at Walmart with buying almost every color/type of cookie decoration they sold. I figured we'd be using this supply for many years to come. So today Nadia and I turned one batch of brownies into 12 little Christmas trees. I put three in a baggie to give Karen (OT) on Monday, and the rest I put in another bag for Ian's birthday party on Saturday. Nadia had a blast decorating them. She only decorated cookies one other time, and that was last December at my mom's house. Tomorrow we're going to make and decorate sugar cookies. Fun, fun, fun! Now if only the birthday boy would actually enjoy eating some of these treats.

Ian is now on the waiting list for the intensive feeding program at Hershey Medical. Now the question is whether to try to get him an appt with Dr. Williams (psychologist) between now and then. The last couple of days were really rough with feeding Ian. He was literally banging his head on the kitchen table. He had his 2 year check-up with the Pediatrician today. Nadia didn't get any shots at her 2 year appt because hers fell in June. Ian got a flu shot today. Nadia didn't see any doctors in between her 2 and 3 year appointments, but evidently if you're on Medical Assistance (which Ian is), you have to be seen at 2 1/2 years old also. Ian will have his last immunization at that time (last for a few years anyhow).

Today they weighed him with only a diaper on (how I think it should be done every time), and he weighed exactly 26lbs - which was 1.75 pounds less than at the Allergist on Monday, but that was with a heavy sweater, turtleneck, jeans, etc. Today's weight put him at the 25th percentile, which is where he's been most of the year whereas Monday's weight put him at the 47th percentile. Big difference! They said he was a little over 33 inches tall, which means his height and weight are at about the same percentile. He was measured at 34 inches in October and 32 inches on Monday (both at the Allergist). So I'd say he's between 32-34 inches tall, lol. They said his head circumference is 49.5cm (72nd percentile).

I called the EI coordinator today to see if there is any other help out there for kids with feeding disorders. I wasn't sure if PT could be added, for example. She says that some speech therapists work with feeding issues but not physical therapists. She did recommend one other OT (that would hopefully be covered by our insurance). I spoke with that clinic, and they need a referral from the Pediatrician. I called the Ped office back this afternoon, but they asked me to call tomorrow at noon as the doctors always take calls from 12-12:30 each day. Hopefully we can get this started asap, and maybe just maybe we can avoid the intensive feeding program OR maybe if we make some progress between now and then, the feeding team at Hershey can work on things like chewing rather than just working on getting him to stop crying. I decided to make pot roast and mashed potatoes for Ian's birthday dinner on Saturday. Hopefully I'll be able to pick a menu based on what Ian likes next year.

Comparing and contrasting 2 two-year-olds!

1. At 2 years old Nadia's attention span for reading was much longer than Ian's. He's only interested in books that have only a few words per page (like Spot books for example). Diary of a Worm is probably the longest book that he requests, but he rarely sits through that whole book. In contrast, Nadia would ask me to read 6 Clifford books in one sitting when she was 23 months old. The two books Ian attempts to recite from memory are Polar Bear, Polar Bear What do you Hear (Carle) and Blue Hat, Green Hat (Boynton).

2. I would estimate that their vocabularies at age two were very similar in size. Nadia's pronunciation was MUCH better than Ian's. Ian certainly can pronounce many words correctly (like "bagel" for example), but there are also many words he says which are understandable but not every sound within the word is pronounced yet. I would also say that they were at about the same stage in terms of the length of their sentences at this age (3-5 words). One of Ian's most common sentences is "I'll get it."

3. Both children loved VeggieTales at age two. Nadia preferred the silly song dvd's when she was 2 years old. Ian's two current favorite dvd's are Daniel (VeggieTales) and Frosty the Snowman.

4. At two years old, they both enjoy riding rides at Knoebels. Nadia was definitely braver with riding rides at age two than Ian is. Ian is very selective regarding what rides he wants to ride. He cries at the end of the ride (because he doesn't want to get off). Nadia never did that, but we knew she loved the rides because she was far more expressive during the ride (whereas Ian usually gives a fairly neutral facial expression during the ride).

5. Both children enjoyed singing at this age. Nadia's pronunciation was better (ex. comparing both of them singing "Happy Birthday" at age two), but Ian definitely sings more throughout the day than Nadia ever has done. Some of his favorite songs include: "Frosty the Snowman," "Go Tell it on the Mountain," "The Wheels on the Bus," "Oh Christmas Tree," "Jingle Bells," "BIBLE," and "Joshua fought the battle of Jericho."

6. Nadia was definitely more extroverted and friendly at this age, but Ian has just started to occasionaly wave or say "hi" or "bye" to strangers at a store or restaurant. Nadia LOVED going to church. Before she turned two she had been promoted to the preschool Sunday School class and children's church. Ian is still in the nursery for both Sunday School and church. He usually cries when I drop him off.

7. There's of course almost no common ground in terms of their diet at this age. Nadia was drinking cold cow's milk. Ian is drinking warm rice drink. Nadia was eating hamburgers, pizza, granola bars, Frosted Mini-Wheats, etc. The only table foods Ian can eat at this point are pudding, yogurt, and applesauce. Nadia had moved to a hard sippy cup. Ian is still using the kind intended for young infants.

8. At two they both loved walking around in Mommy's or Daddy's shoes, being tickled, being cuddled, playing outside, Play-Doh, rough house, and baths. Nadia loved playing with her kitchen. Ian isn't really into that, but he loves playing with vehicles of all sorts, with her dollhouse, and with various Little People toys. He LOVES to be chased. Nadia was better at catching a ball that was thrown to her than Ian is at this point.
9. Nadia was potty trained (night and day) by this point. I haven't made any attempts with potty training Ian yet. Nadia had been requested to go on the potty for several months before she turned 2. Ian hasn't made any such requests yet. He still struggles with diaper rash more than Nadia ever did. This is definitely a motivation for getting him out of diapers.
10. At 2 years Nadia weighed 29lbs and was 33.5 inches tall. Ian weighs 27lbs and is about the same height Nadia was. It's so hard to say for sure because according to his measurements at the Allergist, he is 2 inches shorter in December than he was in October. I don't think so! We shall see how tall they say he is at the Pediatrician on Thursday. Using the rule of thumb of doubling their two year old height, this would mean the kids will be about 5' 7" tall when they are full grown, which sounds pretty reasonable since that's how tall both of their parents are.
11. Nadia had far more teeth than Ian does as she had four canines and four molars. Ian doesn't have any canines yet, and only one of his molars has completely broken through his gums. They both still had blue eyes and blonde hair although Ian's hair is lighter blonde than Nadia's was at this age. Ian's hair is thicker and curlier than Nadia's ever has been.

12. Both of them were sleeping through the night at two years old. The latest Nadia ever slept in by age 2 was 8:45, and the latest Ian ever slept in was 7:45. At two years old, Ian was more consistent about sleeping in until 7:00am. Nadia typically got up earlier than that (sometimes even before 6am). Nadia was a MUCH better napper as she was taking a 2-3 hour nap compared to Ian's 10-30 minute long nap.
13. Ian's attention span for playing independently is MUCH longer than Nadia's was at this age. She always wanted someone to play with her.
14. Ian spends a lot more time crying each day than Nadia did at any age. When he's not crying, he's typically in a pretty good mood. The things that are the most upsetting for him are meals, diaper changes, getting dressed/undressed, having his hands/face washed, having his finger or toenails clipped, having his hair cut, being out of eyesight of Mommy, and transitions (particularly when he wakes up). Ian cares FAR more about what he is wearing than Nadia did at this age. I try to let him pick what shirt or sweater he wears each day and what pjs he wears each night. The only problem is that sometimes he wants to wear two shirts at the same time, and I won't let him do that, lol!
15. Ian is far more destructive than Nadia ever has been. He loves to pull tons of books off the bookshelf, dump bins of toys out, etc. He can make messes FAR faster than I can clean them up!
16. Ian loves animals more than Nadia ever has. This is really evident whenever we visit a zoo.
17. They both are very affectionate. They both love to be cuddled, hugged, and kissed. Because Nadia had a younger brother when she was 2 years old, she didn't get to spend as much time in my lap as Ian does at the age of 2.

18. Ian is far more interested in all the contents of my purse (who knew a calendar could be so exciting to a 1 year old?) and talking on the phone than Nadia has ever been. Several times a day Ian hands me my cell phone and says "call Grandma." The Grandmas can be glad I don't always call when Ian asks or they'd be getting calls as early as 7:15am. Nadia never held the phone herself at this age, but I've let Ian hold it himself for awhile now.
19. Nadia had one favorite stuffed animal. First it was "doggie" that Sarah gave her, and then it was Larry the Cucumber. Even at 3.5, Nadia is still consistent in that Larry and Sweetpea have been her favorites for the past year. Ian also loves stuffed animals, but which ones are his favorite change on a weekly if not daily basis. These have included a rhino, kitty, dog, "Chocolate man," Bob, rabbit, bear, and monkey. They both love their stuffed animals very much and would have a very hard time sleeping without them!
20. Neither child made any attempt to climb out of the crib during the first 2 years of life. We had Nadia move from a crib to a bed at 2.5 years old. I can't picture having Ian make that transition in six months. I guess we'd need to do it within 9 months if the ivf results in a pregnancy.
21. Neither child enjoyed the process of having his/her hair washed at this age.
22. Ian makes far more of a mess when sitting in his booster seat than Nadia did at this age. The boy loves to throw things. We're working on overcoming that bad habit.

23. Ian will sit in a stroller happily far longer than Nadia would when she was his age.

24. Ian is far more of a Mommy's boy than Nadia was at this age.
I am so, so, so thankful for both of these precious kids. They both have brought so much joy to our lives. Praise God from whom all blessings flow!
P.S. The first two pictures are of Nadia and Ian each at 22 months, and the last two pictures are their two year pictures taken at Walmart.

An Unusual Birthday

Nadia's baby doll is wearing the same dress as Nadia.

As I was contemplating how to celebrate Ian's birthday, it hit me how much "food" usually plays a part in birthday celebrations. I don't just mean the cake. Usually I'd try to serve the birthday boy his favorite foods at each meal. Ian doesn't have any favorite foods. His party isn't until Saturday. I am not sure that he'll want any frosting. I know he won't want any cake. I haven't picked the menu for the dinner, but it won't be based on his taste buds whereas at 2 years old Nadia's meal was definitely based on her preferences. So the only ways this day felt any different from any other was that we gave Ian some presents and sang Happy Birthday to him many times. I actually let Ian open one present yesterday during Nadia's nap because I was feeling badly over the trauma of having all that tape peeled off his back. He loves the Little People garage . Unfortunately Nadia also likes it. It's large enough that they both could play with it at the same time, but Ian wasn't wanting to let Nadia join him.

This morning I fed Ian his 2nd meal at 9:30am. Usually his second meal isn't until 11:30am, but I knew we'd be at the hospital then. We left the house at 10:00am as we were first stopping at Adria's house. She has 2 girls (ages 1 and 3), and she offered to watch Nadia during Ian's appointment. Her house was 10 minutes out of the way. It only takes 30 minutes to drive to the hospital from our house, but when you include time to go to Adria's house, time to park, and time to walk to the right part of the hospital, it took a full hour to get from our house to the Allergist's office.

We were in and out of the Allergist's office in 40 minutes, and that included our appointment with the dietician. The allergist we saw today wasn't one we had seen before. She said what I already knew to be true - the results of the patch testing were negative. So this was much ado about nothing. The first allergist was correct that this type of testing isn't useful with EE. Everyone agrees he is allergic to milk even though the blood test, prick testing, and patch testing all say he's not allergic to milk. The allergist we saw in October will be calling us with what the next steps will be. The Allergist we saw today spent less than 5 minutes with us. The meeting with the dietician was pointless since no new allergies were discovered. She just basically told us to keep doing what we're doing, especially as he had gained a lot of weight since we had seen him last. With a heavy sweater, turtleneck, jeans, socks, and wet diaper, Ian weighed about 27.75 lbs. I weighed him at home without the jeans and with a dry diaper and he weighs about one pound less than that.

Ian fell asleep during his appointment with the dietician. I got my exercise carrying a sleeping 27 lb baby with one arm while pushing a stroller with the other arm. It was a 10 minute walk from one end of the hospital to the other to get to the pharmacy. I had asked the nurse 2 weeks ago to have my ivf meds called in by Dec 9. When I went to pick them up on Friday, they hadn't been called in yet. The ivf nurse wasn't in on Friday so I called her at 8:30 this morning and asked that they be called in so I could pick them up at noon.



I showed up at the pharmacy at 11:50 and was told that my meds weren't ready because they had only been called in 30 minutes earlier. I made a HUGE mistake. I decided to wait for them to fill the order. I should have known better. The last time I had meds filled there I said I'd never come back. I thought I had solved the problem by requesting them to be called in ahead of time. The other times I had brought over the prescriptions in person. If I could go back in time, I would have had the fertility nurse call in the order to an online pharmacy.

I waited for a full hour and still didn't get everything I needed. I got all the syringes, Follistim, hCG, and Prometrium. They didn't have enough Menopur so they gave me Repronex instead. I've been on both, and I greatly prefer Menopur. They didn't even ask me if I was okay with the substitution. When I objected the called the nurse, and she told me she has some Menopur, and if I buy the Repronex she'll trade with me at my first appointment. They didn't have enough Ganirelix, and there's no other option for that one. I am either going to have the rest of that Rx filled online OR see if my local CVS can get it with plenty of advance warning. I am not going back to that pharmacy at the hospital if I can possibly help it! I paid $93.64 for these meds. The insurance paid $4,359.80. One nice thing is that they ordered ALL my meds for the whole cycle. They haven't always done it that way. They authorized some refills, but unless I need a higher dosage than the last two times, I won't need any refills, except of the Prometrium if we see two lines on a hpt.

By the time I picked Nadia up and drove home, it was almost 2pm. Ian cried most of the way home. I fed him as soon as we got home, which upset Nadia because it meant I put her in bed without reading to her. After I finished feeding Ian, I read to Nadia as she was still crying. At that point I decided to skip ballet. It's the first class she's missed. If I really wanted, I could take her to another one of the baby ballet classes this week to make it up, but I'm just going to skip it. I think part of the reason I was so drained when I got home was because I stayed up until midnight last night cheering Paul's Giants on to victory. I'm going to bed early tonight! The wait for the meds would have been much worse if it weren't for the fact that Ian slept through 40 of the 65 minute wait. He napped for 50 minutes at the hospital today. Why can't he do that in his crib? Nadia didn't nap today. She was only in her bed for about an hour. I usually have her stay in at least 2 hours, but I put her down over an hour later than normal.

The good news is that the gifts were a hit! The gift he played with the most today were two little vehicles that Aunt Wendy gave him (see the last picture). He didn't get to try out the vehicles for the bathtub yet (the kind that stick when wet); he's studying the box (above). Both children enjoyed the hat and vest that Aunt Yvonne gave him and the drill set that I got him. He gave Spot (a puppet) several hugs. Spot books are some of his favorites. The first birthday that Nadia really anticipated was her 3rd birthday. Hopefully Ian's 3rd birthday can include some food he likes to eat and won't include any doctor appointments. Ian sang the birthday song a lot today, but otherwise I don't think he gets the concept of birthdays yet. Nadia is already greatly anticipating her next birthday. Oh my goodness. I don't think she has any comprehension it's more than 6 months away from now! Hopefully her 4th birthday celebration will live up to her grandiose expectations! I'll do my best to make it extra special!



My son is two years old!

Over the last 2 years Ian has....

Gained 20 lbs. He weighed 6lb 1oz at birth, which was big for coming 6 weeks early (that is attributed to my having had gestational diabetes). This photo was taken in the OR right before he was whisked to the NICU. It's the only one we have before he was hooked up to lots of tubes, wires, etc.

Gained 9 teeth. His first tooth (bottom left side front tooth) broke through a couple of days after he turned 9 months old. Thus far he has 9 teeth (8 incisors and 1 molar) that have completely broken through. A small portion of three other molars have broken through. If you count those, then he has 12 teeth.

9 Months Old

Been under general anesthesia 4 times. The first surgery took place a couple of days after he turned 10 months old (October 2010). The other three were in May, June, and August (2011). Two of the surgeries were urological (hypospadias repair), and the other two were upper endoscopies.

10 Months Old

Learned to sleep through the night. He mastered this skill around the time he turned 15 months old. What a relief!! He now sleeps from 8pm to 7am. Bliss. He hasn't yet learned how to nap (unless one 10-30 minute nap a day counts as a good nap).

15 Months Old

Become mobile. He started crawling right around his first birthday. It was the lights on the Christmas tree that motivated him to figure out how to get from point A to point B. At 15.5 months old he started walking, and ever since then he's been running all over the place!

15.5 Months Old

 

Been diagnosed with Eosinophilic Esophagitis. The diagnosis came in May 2011 (17 months old). We finally found the cause of his feeding disorder. Eliminating milk, soy, peanuts, and eggs from his diet brought an end to the frequent vomiting which had been a constant for more than a year. Over the past 2 years he's had breastmilk (for 14 months), cow's milk (5 months), formula (12 months), Elecare (3 months), almond milk (2 months), and rice drink (2 months). He will drink any form of "milk" as long as it's warm and served in one particular brand of sippy cup. He's seen two feeding teams, three GI's, three allergists, and two dieticians in regards to his esophagitis and feeding issues. At this point he can only eat pureed food, baby cereal, applesauce, yogurt, and pudding. He loves to lick pretzels and chips. He's had weekly occupational therapy services since he was 13 months old.

17 Months Old

Learned how to talk! His verbal expression skills really took off shortly before he turned 20 months old (August). He had speech therapy for about 3 months (June - September). He's talking up a storm these days (3-5 word sentences) and also singing many songs throughout the day. The word he says which makes me smile the most is "alrighty," and the one that touches me the most is "I love you," especially when he says it of his own initiative.

20 Months Old

Learned so many things! It's really amazing how much young children learn in the first two years of life - gross motor skills, fine motor skills, receptive vocabulary, expressive vocabulary, etc. Ian is learning to use manners; he's getting pretty good at saying, "please," "thank you," and "you're welcome." He's also learned some of his shapes (oval, circle, triangle, square, diamond, and rectangle), can count to 13, can do peg puzzles on his own, can identify a few letters of the alphabet correctly, and knows some of his colors.

23 Months Old

48 hour results = negative

There's a woman in my choir who is a Physician Assistant. She's the one who graciously agreed to remove Ian's catheter in June. Sue came to the rescue again today by removing the tape and patches from Ian's back. It definitely was a two person job as Ian was screaming and moving as he didn't like all that stuff being peeled off his back. She said there weren't any raised or red spots at this point. I am not sure if this is a good thing or not. Maybe it shows that our previous allergist was right that patch testing is not necessary for EE. I really did like the previous allergist, but this one is a LOT closer to our house. We shall see what they say tomorrow. When the GI told us the results of the upper-GI were negative, I remember saying that's not good news. That wasn't what she was expecting me to say, and I responded that I knew there was a problem, and this meant we needed to do more testing to find out what it was. It was the endoscopy that finally revealed his problem (EE). In this case, I wasn't hoping for more allergies to be discovered. The previous allergist believes that traditional allergy testing isn't useful with EE. He uses the child's responses to the various foods to be the determining factor rather than a blood test, prick test, or patch test.

Ian has tested negative to milk (by all three types of tests), but by his behavior (in this case vomiting), it seems he's allergic to milk and soy. The prick testing shows him to be allergic to peanuts and eggs. I honestly am tempted to call the previous allergist and get his input after I hear what this one says tomorrow, but I'm not sure if it's fair to keep calling him if I don't want to drive 4 hours (RT) to have him see Ian again. As a parent, this is the first time I've encountered a medical issue where the doctors are not agreeing on how to handle it, and I'm struggling to know which one to believe. Well the next step is to have Ian's back read by the allergist tomorrow and to hear what this one thinks. We're seeing a different one tomorrow (at the same clinic though) so actually it will be a third opinion of sorts.

The psychologist emailed me yesterday morning and asked me to keep a three day log of what Ian ate, what his behavior was, what he drank, etc. He also wants to know the latest report from the Allergist before making a decision whether or not Ian should be admitted to the intensive feeding program. Keith wants to be sure that all physiological issues have been resolved before we tackle the behavioral/psychological ones. I am going to send him that info Monday night so hopefully I'll hear back from him on Tuesday.

Before I would agree to admitting him, I would want to know what exactly Keith thought their feeding team could accomplish with Ian during that 3-6 week time span. A woman at church who is a special ed preschool teacher told me today that one of her current students (age 4) was referred for the intensive feeding program, and his parents refused to sign him up for it. She said this boy is still having SO much trouble eating, and the teachers are really wishing the parents had (or would) agree to the program. She was obviously advocating for me to enroll Ian in the program.

A woman who is a retired physical therapist gave me some recommendations of other therapists in the area who specialize in sensory issues. She thought the intensive program would be too much for me to handle with a 3 year old and also going through ivf at the same time (she's one of the few people I've told "in real life" that we're doing ivf again). The bottom line is that we are still praying for wisdom to know what would be best. If it seems like we might be doing the intensive program, I am going to call my department chair as this seems like a valid reason to need to know what's up for next semester. I haven't asked him about it since the middle of November.

Speaking of medical appointments, one thing I failed to mention in my post about the kids' names a few days ago was ease of pronunciation. Thus far no one has really had trouble pronouncing Nadia's name when they've read it before they've heard it. I can't say that about Ian. At several medical facilities people have prounounced Ian's name phonetically as in the long "I" sound rather than "E" sound at the beginning of his name. If it has been someone who isn't going to keep saying his name over and over, I haven't corrected them, but if it's been someone like a nurse in the recovery room who will be saying his name many times over a period of a few hours, then I've corrected their pronunciation. I much prefer the sound of his name with an "e" sound at the beginning!          

P.S. These are some more pictures from Wednesday's photo shoot. I didn't buy any prints of any of the poses pictured in this post.

My kids love the microphone

Tears but no blood

I should have done a little reading on what patch testing is before today's appointment as then I wouldn't have been worried that Ian's back might get bloody again this morning. There aren't any needles involved in patch testing. Ian's back somewhat looks like the pictures this woman posted of her son only they used a LOT more tape on Ian. Even though it wasn't painful today, he still screamed the whole time. First of all, I had to lift up his shirt. This alone is pure torture according to Ian. Trust me. I go through this a few times a day. He absolutely HATES to have his clothing taken off. It sounds like it's the end of the world by how he screams when I undress him. Karen suggested a few weeks ago that I take off Ian's pjs while he's still in the crib, and that has helped with the first diaper change. He clutches his pjs and screams as he doesn't want them to come off. Anyhow having his back exposed was hard enough for him, and then they were attaching things to him, writing on his back with a pen, etc. He screamed and writhed as if he was in sheer pain the whole time. I am to remove the patches and tape around noon on Sunday. I'll do it after we get home from church. I am to darken any of the pen markings that have faded, circle any red spots, and take a photo of his back. The allergist will examine his back on Monday. The results of patch testing are to be read at 48 and 72 hours. Some clinics have you come to the doctor's office for both readings. This clinic has you take a picture at 48 hours and come in at 72 hours.

Considering the process took less than 10 minutes, I have no idea why they only do it once a month, especially as in October they were already scheduling 2 months in advance due to being booked up. I don't get it. Sometimes I think doctor's offices get into a mentality of "this is how we do things" instead of stopping and thinking what is best for the patients and being more flexible. This is not the only instance something has happened that has led me to that conclusion. Well it will be interesting to see how many red spots he has on Sunday. As I don't have the "key," I won't have any idea which foods he's showing a reaction to. It's all so confusing as the first GI did want the patch testing done, but the first allergist didn't believe it to be accurate. This second allergist does believe it's useful for treating EE. I have no idea who is right. I just hope we accurately diagnose what he is and is not allergic to.

There were also a LOT of tears this evening. I had seen an advertisement for a live nativity drive-thru at a church about 6 miles from our house. I thought the kids would enjoy that. Was I ever wrong! Well I think they would have enjoyed it if we didn't have to wait for 50 minutes in line in the church's driveway before going through the 10 minute drive-thru. Ian screamed through the entire drive-thru as well as our drive home. Nadia was also crying at the end of our trip home. I didn't have ANY notion it would take so long. I was thinking we'd be home by 7:45, which is when we start putting the kids to bed, but we didn't actually get home until 8:25. I have no desire to do another drive-thru any time soon!

The happiest moment of the day was at the mall this afternoon. I wanted to use two JCP coupons (I paid $7.59 which represented a savings of $34.41) while getting Paul's car's oil changed and tires rotated at Sears. Nadia and I enjoyed a treat at DQ while Ian "rode" some rides (no money involved). Between Sears, DQ, and JCP, I spent less than $16 at the mall today thanks to using lots of coupons. Not bad, eh? The highlight of our trip was how many people enjoyed hearing Ian sing "Frosty the Snowman" at the top of his little lungs. People were actually seeking him out in Hallmark. People said they could hear a young child singing and asked me if it was my son. Yep! Some shoppers were encouraging others to come our way and "hear the little boy singing Frosty." He actually had a crowd around him at one point. What a cutie. Nadia loves to sing, but I think Ian has more musical talent than Nadia, at this point in time anyhow.

Moments like that are especially endearing to me because sometimes I get comments regarding him which hurt really badly. On our way home from the hospital this morning, I stopped at a Weis to buy rice drink, as the store I go to in our town doesn't carry it. Ian was driving one of those little cars that are attached to some shopping carts and an older woman said to me "what a mean face - your boy is really mad." He actually was totally content. He wasn't mad at all. I have to tell you I literally felt physical pain over that comment, because it brought back so many flashbacks of when my brother used to get those comments All The Time. My heart used to hurt so badly for my brother when he was little. I remember him hiding his face in my skirt so people wouldn't stare and make comments. If a person has a definite disability (such as Down Syndrome or something like that), then generally at least adults don't say anything. It's so hard in situations like this when people who "know better" don't realize they're hurting your feelings because they honestly just think the person is mad and don't realize that's just how they look. That's what used to frustrate me with my brother. I'd think, well of course children are just going to blurt stuff out, but you expect adults to be more polite. I have a feeling my emotional response to these comments directed toward Ian are much stronger than they would have been if I hadn't gone through what I did with my brother when he was little (I'm almost 12 years older than my brother). This happens very rarely with Ian, thankfully. We endured these comments far more frequently with my brother. The adage from Bambi seems to apply here as well, "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all."

I asked Karen (OT) yesterday what I could do differently with Ian so that we could make progress. I told her that the only improvements I could think of over the past 6 months were #1 that he rarely bats the spoon with his hand (I used to have to hold his face and hands and now I only hold his head) and #2 now he's up to 30 bites a meal (was at 18 bites a meal 6 months ago). How much he fusses or screams at a meal varies from day to day. His tolerance of texture has regressed lately. Her response was that she didn't have any advice for me other than that she thinks Ian needs the intensive feeding program at Hershey. This involves being in a hospital ALL day five days a week for 3-6 weeks. They do 5-10 feeding sessions a day. They will also do toilet training if requested. Hershey is almost 2 hours away from our home so we couldn't make that 4 hour commute every day for that many weeks. She said we could stay at the Ronald McDonald House, but if we really went that route we'd stay with Paul's parents (who live 45 minutes from Hershey) or one of my friend's houses or something like that. I left a message with the psychologist, who is the head of the feeding team, to get his input, but he didn't call me back. I'm going to email him. It would be a big imposition for myself, Nadia, and Ian, especially if we are also undergoing IVF at the same time. In the long run it might be totally worth it. The last time Karen voiced this opinion, Keith (psychologist) disagreed. We shall see what he says this time around.

Speaking of ivf, I tried to pick up my meds today. The nurse I spoke with two weeks ago said she'd call them in so I could pick them up on Dec 9th. They didn't do that, and the ivf nurse wasn't in today. I'll be calling her first thing on Monday morning in the hopes they'll be ready for me to pick up after Ian's appointments. Nadia stayed home with Paul today since Paul was able to work from home this week. On Monday he'll be at PSU so I made arrangements for her to stay at someone else's house (a woman from Bible study who also has a 1 year old and 3 year old) during Ian's appointments. I've learned the hard way that it's not ideal to have two little ones in a doctor's exam room for an extended period of time.

Names

We took many things into consideration when selecting our children's names. One was that we didn't want their names to be too popular. We didn't want them to constantly be running into other children with the same name. Thus far we've only met one other Nadia so I'd say we definitely succeeded in that regard with her name. Even though Ian has been around 70th place in popularity for boys the past few years, we have run into other Ian's his age (there were a few in the NICU when he was born!). Still, I don't think it's going to be a problem. It's not like there's another Ian in the nursery or something like that.

Another thing we took into consideration was ease of spelling. I have seen people spell Ian's name with an "E" instead of an "i," which phonetically makes sense, but most people who have the name Ian spell it with an "I." I did have a student once who spelled his name Ean. Nadia's name is spelled correctly most of the time as well, but it has been spelled incorrectly by two people. One librarian spelled her name with a "t" instead of a "d," and Paul's cousin's wife spelled her name with a "y" after the "d." No one has trouble spelling Paul or Ruth. Our kids' names aren't quite as easy to spell as ours, but still it hasn't been much of an issue for either child thus far.

A third consideration we had was whether people would be tempted to change their name (nickname). We didn't want that to happen if at all possible. Thus far no one has tried to modify Ian's name. One person has given Nadia a nickname. Her gymnastics' teacher called her "Nad" for a few weeks. I thought it sounded awful, and I was so torn whether to say something. Thankfully she went back to calling her Nadia without me saying anything. Whew. Hopefully no one else will modify her name as we like it just the way it is! If Nadia's wish comes true and she has a baby sister, we plan on naming her Deborah Marie. Neither of our children's names came from family members, but Deborah would be after Paul's mom's sister, and Marie is my mom's middle name. We are okay with Deborah being made into a nickname of Deb or Debbie. It's not that we are totally opposed to nicknames, but in some instances we only liked the proper name and didn't like a common nickname for that name and because of that we avoided the name altogether.

We haven't begun to discuss a possible boy's name if we have another son. If I see two lines next month then we might start discussing possible names again. At least we'd only have to come up with a boy's name since we already have a girl's name picked out. If the pattern held true, our next baby would be a boy. I say that because when I was pregnant with Nadia we only had a boy's name picked out (Ian Alexander) and after we found the gender out we got serious about picking a girl's name. The second time around we had a girl's name picked out (Deborah Marie) and for awhile had decided against Ian Alexander because of a negative connotation we feared another relative would have with the name Ian. So both times when we found out the gender, we had a name picked out for the other gender. I'm trying so hard to keep my hopes in check, but it would be wonderful if the Lord allows us to have one last child in 2012. If any of you were praying for my friend, Jo, I am happy to report that the Lord did provide them with the finances they need to do ivf again in a few months! I'm praying we'll both give birth next year!

P.S. As you can see, PictureMe posted our photos on the website today. I bought some prints yesterday of the first and third photos in this post. I'll share a few more tomorrow.

First Field Trip

Nadia is going on her very first field trip this evening. A couple of weeks ago I signed a permission slip for the first time in my life. I've created many permission slips in my life. When I was a middle school teacher, I took my students on MANY field trips. I think I took my kids on more field trips than any of the other teachers in the school. Nadia's first field trip is to a nursing home. The Cubbies and other children involved in that AWANA program are going to go caroling and host a Christmas party for the residents. Parents were invited to participate, but Paul doesn't enjoy caroling, and I really can't miss my choir rehearsal due to all the music we are singing in the near future. We typically sing one anthem each Sunday. In December we also sing an entire cantata one Sunday (on the 18th this year). Every other church I've been in the choir director would use some of the songs from the cantata for the other Sunday services. Not this choir director! We only sing those songs when we do the whole cantata. We are also singing two Christmas anthems on December 24th and two others on December 25th. Altogether that's a LOT of Christmas music to rehearse! I am singing a solo in one of the songs on the 25th, playing my flute some in the cantata, and playing a flute solo this Saturday night at our Christmas dinner. All that to say, I can't skip choir rehearsal tonight! Since I plan to homeschool, I will be participating in most of their field trips. :-)

This morning we had our usual routine of gymnastics from 9:00-9:45 followed by the library program that begins at 10:00. We left that program a little early for our appointment at PictureMe Studios. They were having a special where you can get a free single image CD and one sheet of prints for free (5x7 with 4 wallets). The photographer took two pictures of the kids together and several of each of them individually. I wasn't super keen on any of the ones of Nadia. I decided to wait until Maryland and ask my sister to take one of her as she got a really nice one of Nadia on a rocking chair (that was mine when I was a child) last year. I thought it would be neat to take a similar pose this year to show her growth from last year to this year. Plus Nadia has LOTS of (way too many) Christmas dresses. She can wear a different one for the photo my sister will hopefully take. I bought a few prints of just Ian. I was proud of myself for walking out of the studio having spent less than $17. At home I ordered prints of the above photo (from the CD). I purchased one 8x10, four 5x7's, eight wallets, and four 3.5x 5's. All of that put together cost me (drum roll please) $5.99. Can you tell I am a huge fan of PictureMe studios? I'm not planning to return to Sears anytime soon. The pictures haven't been uploaded on PictureMe's website so I can't show you the other ones yet, but the one above was the best one anyhow (in my opinion). It's not an amazing smile for either child, but I still think it's a very nice Christmas photo.