News from the zoo: February 2009

Monday, February 23, 2009

I know - no pictures. It''s like, unthinkable, isn't it?

In short, I've been run absolutely ragged. Mike has been in Edmonton for the last two weeks, and I'm really starting to appreciate how hard it is to be a single mom. Having him off on these trips with one or two was always so much fun. With three. Oh. My. God. I can't wait for him to come home, so I can curl into a ball in the closet and weep.

Well, maybe it's not THAT bad. But it's certainly no fun. It doesn't really seem like Mike does that much when he's here, but he actually does, in his own way. He defenitely does keep the kids occupied and entertained while I'm busy with other stuff, so they don't trash the place while my back is turned, which has been my reality these last couple weeks. And he watches the older two for me, so I can get out with just Dave, which is like a break for me. If someone were to tell me just after John was born that going out with a baby would be an enjoyable break from life, I would have had my tubes tied then and there. I've been thinking about that lately, because one of Mike's hockey teammates just had a baby three weeks ago. (well, his wife did.) She ws supposed to come to the last game to show off the baby to the team. Mike brought us all, so we could see her (we've known her through her whole pregnancy). But when she didn't show up, I knew she was probably sitting in bed, bleary eyed in the middle of a non-stop breastfeeding session. Turns out, I was right. I had days when I just couldn't get out the door. Now, that seems so ludicrous. But looking back, I totaly understand and empathize with that poor, poor woman.

So, how are the kids? Pretty good. Dave just had a second round of shots. I can't actually remember what his weight was, but he was smack on the 50th percetile for the weight-height ratio, so the perfect level of plump. His hair is definitely growing in red. Sort of a pretty strawberry blonde, as opposed to John's orangy red. but definitely not brown - not yet, at least. I've met a ton of people who say they started out red, but then it went either blonde or brown. He's really strong. During tummy time, he gets right up on his hands. And the other day, he was trying to get up on all fours. He managed to get his belly off the flor, up on his knees and elbows. He let out a giggle before flopping back down. It was realy cool. He's got this inchworm thing going on, which he uses to get around. He'll draw up his legs, then push off to propel him forward. The nurse's eyes bugged when I told her all this - apparently he's very far advanced for his age. Joan's therapists asked how he was doing, too, so I told them as well, but they weren't surprised at all - they said baby siblings usually progress fast, to keep up with the gang.

I gave him some cereal yesterday. He's been literally lunging at everyone else's food lately, and getting mad when he can't have any. So out came the rice. He was NOT impressed. He would grab the spoon, and ram it hungrily into his mouth...then grimace and spit it out. None of my kids liked that stuff. Joan wanted to try it when she saw Dave eating it. But she didn't even get it into her mouth before grimacing and letting out a "blech!" I think I'll move on to fruit for Dave. Maybe some banana. He might like that better. But the rice incident has actually stopped him from lunging at our food!

As for Joan, things are going great. She's going through yet another growth spurt. I can feel her muscles tighten, which happens every time she grows. She's also eating like a horse. She's constantly following me around, chanting "Eat! Eat! Eat!"

We've made an exciting therapy breakthrough! We've tried this before, with bad results. But I think her right arm is starting to wake up, so it seems open to it now. We've started holding her good arm, forcing her right arm to do things. And it can!!! If it's given a task, it can't do things at first. But if I actually hold it, and move it through the action, it can repeat it. It's like, it has to be taught. But once taught, it can do all sorts of stuff. I started with a toy she got for Christmas - it's a spinning ball that sings the alphabet. She loves it, so I "taught" her right hand to play with it. it was slow going at the start, but now, she can do it with her right hand on comand, which is amazing! We also have a game where we fill a little box with toys. She's allowed to take a toy with her left hand. But then, she has to take the second with her right. She always says "help!" when her hand is in the bucket, becuase she still has trouble manipulating her fingers. But after a few times of being guided, her right arm could do it all by itself - with help on the finger end. One of the last times we did it, she had a toy in her left hand, and automatically reached in with her right, without prompting. We've been doing it for a while, and now her right hand is starting to do all sorts of stuff by itself. I saw her rub her eyes with only her right hand. Today, she was trying to open a cupbourd with it. She couldn't turn her arm the right way, so it was tough. (Her palm naturally faces out, instead of in.) But when I turned it for her, she was able to wrap her fingers around, and pull it open! I was showing it to Mike the last time he was home - we got her to bat at one of Dave's hanging crib toys, and grab and squeeze our fingers on command. It was really cool. Her occupational therapist hasn't seen it yet, but I told her physiotherapist about it during the preschool play group on Friday, and she was really impressed. She said they've always seen the potential for good function in that hand - it's just a matter of tapping into it. So she said to bring it up at her next appointment, and we can talk about maybe doing constraint therapy. She said in the meantime to experiment with the therapy, by taping her hand in a sock or in a tensor bandage. I haven't done it yet. But I'm curious to see what would happen.

Her therapists are also eager to see how she reacts to having glasses. No - we haven't gotten them yet. All of our money has gone to our apartment in Edmonton. It's only $45/night for a fully serviced and furnished bachelor apartment, but we had to pay a month as a deposit, plus pay each week inadvance, so it was a lot up front. And Mike's per diems from ATI are just now starting to trickle in, four days before he's scheduled to come home. So we've been just flat broke, and will be for a few more days. But then, we'll be more than fine, and can FINALLY get Joan some glasses.

Also in Joan's life is the hunt for a preschool. The government has something called PUF - program Unit funding. it will pay for her to go to a therapy program, whether it's a spoecial needs school, or having a therapist come to our house, or a preschool of our choice. The consensus from joan's team is to go for the special needs school. It gives the greatest intensity of therapy, and it lets her socialize with her peers. I was a little leery. i was actually considering going with the visiting therapist in a normal preschool plan. But after seeing the school, I've definitely changed my mind. I was envisioning a bunch of kids in wheelchairs, being stretched in painful ways. Kind of an old style asylum/torture chamber. Dim, twitchy lights, distant screams. That sort of thing. But it wasn't like that at all. There were a couple kids off to the side, in their chairs, not able to move. But the vast majority were runing around, playing, having an awesome time. The activities were totally different. More gross-motor than what you see in a normal preschool - lots of obstacle courses, climbing, jumping - alongside water tables and all that usual stuff. The ratio was 3-1, and the calsses are all integrated. About a third of the class doesn't need therapy at all. They stay home Fridays, so the teachers can focus more intensly on the special needs kids. There's monthly home visits as well, so we can be kept up on what's happening, and they can dig through our toy box to see how we can replicate it at home. The co-ordinator said Joan was the school's perfect candidate - she's so far behind, but he says just looking at her, he can tell she'll do very well with intense therapy. They can get big, exciting results, which excites all the agencies that hand out the money, which can help open doors to more services for her. I have one other tour in the morning. Then, it's just a matter of getting her assessments done, securing the funding, and then locking in a placement. Hopefully, we can get a place near wherever we move to in the summer, in one of these schools. They have bussing, but not for kids who live too far away. I'm still open to the normal preschool/visiting therapist scenario. But it's definitely not my TOP pick anymore. So I have all my fingers crossed that everything falls into place.

John is of course, doing awesome. He's loving school, and his teachers seem to have learned to love his eccentric nature. he goes to schol in costume now and then, and his teacher just takes it in stride, and plays along with him. I've though we should put him into acting classes of some sort. But, does he really need them? Is this something we realy want to encourage? Come September, he'll be 5, which seems to be the magic age for all things extracurricular. So far, we're defaulting to Scouts. But we'll see what's out there.

I don't think I told you about his show and tell. He was so excited! He took..a Mars rock. Yes, his own little chunk of Mars, that he found in our yard. It's actually just a red rock - some piece of broken brick or something. But he created a very exciting story of how it broke off of Mars, and crashed down into our garden, where he found it. I was a little leery about letting him take it - I thought the teachers might be irritated by a fictitious object. But I thought, show and tell is really just an exercise for public speaking and listening respectfully, and it really doesn't matter what the object is. So off he went, with his little chunk of Mars. The teacher LOVED it, and said he did really well. She said most kids need prompting for show and tell. Not my kid. Nope - she just announced his name, and off he went! He has another show and tell day on Wednesday. Not sure what he's going to take, but it should be exciting.

He finaly got to see the science centre, with a class field trip. He's asked to go every single day since! They have a little kids section called Wow Town - his teacher said she had a hard time getting him out of there. Then, they went to another section called the creative kids museum, where they have a music centre. She has a hilarious picture of him whaling away on a guitar, looking very rock-starish.

He's been asking to go to Dryden lately - John's begging to go to Dryden has become a good guage of spring in our house. Move over Wiarton Willie. Not sure when we'll be coming. He wants to: celebrate his birthday, pick apples and go to the fall fair, this summer. That's a pretty long stretch. We'll have to work something out. Until then, we'll just have to endure the whining.

well, that's about all I can thing of for now.
I'll come back soon with more

Saturday, February 07, 2009

crazy pictures!!!!

more pics from Picasa

John, at Christmas

Joan, in PJs made by her great grandma Hart

a little snuggle with grandpa walchuk

pictures!

just exploring Picasa (thank you Grandpa Walchuk.) Still figuring out all the features, but good news - I have pictures!

John's space man outfit.

The kids, after discovering that they can fit in my stock pot

Dave - sleeping like a baby

Friday, February 06, 2009

all eyes on Joan

sorry no pictures - mike still hasn't had a look at our computer. however, W. inc did buy me a snazzy new-to-me laptop, so I can do paperwork stuff without leaving the kids alone, which is what I'm on now. Sadly, it doesn't have Photoshop, but I'm going to see what I can do. Hopefully, Mike can resurrect the desktop. My camera is bulging.

We're working through our crazy appointments for Joan. Last week, we had her pediatric check-up. It's just a well-baby visit, but becasue she's special needs, she's seen by a ped, instead of a GP, because they know more about these strokes and what she's going to need. She's also in a better position to apply pressure for whatever it's deemed she needs. Don't qualify for preschool funding? A strongly worded letter from a pediatrician can often sway opinions, she says. Joan has disabled status for the next four years thanks to a pediatrician's letter saying she will likely never walk without assistance. She says she'll help our therapy team get botox, too, if the orthopedic docs say no. She's also trying to push for a faster admission into the neuromotor clinic, which is where her orthopedic docs are. She has yet to be examined by one.

Anyway, the pediatrician said she looks awesome, and was really impressed with the progress she's made since her last check-up six months ago. She's still tall and slender for her age, but in a good way, she said.

That was last week. This week, we saw the opthamologist - ( the eye doctor.) Two bits of bad news there, for now. There may be more on the way, but it's too early to check for blind spots, and her field of vision test was inconclusive. (she admitted it wasn't very scientific - she just waved a toy in her periferal vision zones to see if she'd look.) However, she did see some nerve damage in her right eye - likely caused by the stroke. What does that mean? no-one knows for sure. In an older stroke victim, it means poor vision for that eye. However, she's seen other neonatal stroke survivors with similar damage, who go on to have perfectly fine vision, because the brain learns to correct the image. So it's way, way too early to tell. What we do know, is she's moderately near-sighted, and needs glasses. Things start to get blurry at about a foot from her face. She suspects that could be the cause of her extreme nervousness and shyness. She's had many patients blossom socially and developmentally, after getting glasses.

I did suspect near-sightedness. She's very clingy, even at home. She often sits on my feet, or wraps herself around my leg, if I'm standing. It makes her very cuddly, but not very adventurous. As well, she never points out things that are far away, and if we point them out, they don't seem to register. I thought it might be her language barrier, but she's good with books and near-by things, so this makes sense. I'm hoping this might help her venture out. The doc was actually hemming and hawing about writing the prescription. But then she held the lenses that would match her prescription in front of her face, and she really liked it. She actually got all pouty when they were taken away. When we saw that, we were both sold.

She said not to worry about her brain too much. She said she's a very bright little girl. The reason her periferal test was comprimised, was that Joan kept following the doc's hand around, as she was grabbing toys, and moving them to the side. "She's very observant," she said. "Most two-year-olds don't do that."

In other news, all is...ok. We're all working through a series of colds and flus. I'm hoping the flu shot the public health nurse practically forced into my arm when Dave had his shots will do some good. As it stands, I have three kids with eye infections. I almost cancelled Joan's eye appointment this morning, because her eyes were glued shut with gunk. John has a sore ear. Mike has a full-blown flu. I have a clogged ear from an earlier bug, but am otherwise in good shape. Just have to keep reminding myself to not touch my eyes, so I don't get what the kids have. Blech. I don't think I've ever washed my hands as frequently as I am now.

Dave's doing great. He's actually creeping now, which is a littlecreepy..no pun intended. He can flip himself from back to belly, and on his belly, he can scootch around a bit. He can raise up on his elbows now. Sometimes, I see him peeking over the top of his cradle. And he can do the tripod sitting thing, for a second or two - where he holds the floor with his hands. He sure is growing fast. I feel like we've been so busy, I'm missing out on his whole babyhood. At his last check-up, a month ago, he was 14 pounds, and has grown a lot since then. He gets more shots next week, lucky duck.

In other news, Mike is heading to Edmonton for a few weeks with work. It was a good opportunity to get some extra money, so he volunteered. We'll probably head up on his days off, or he'll come home, or a mix of both. But we'll generally be separate - John has school, Joan has therapy, and it's just a general pain in the butt to relocate with kids anyway. Mike's looking forward to catching up on his reading, and being able to go to bed when he wants. I'm looking forward to sleeping in - as much as the kids let me. And watching HGTV and Food after they go to bed, without listening to moans and groans.

Anyway, better go. Joan is having a rough time falling asleep. But I'll leave you with a John tidbit I've been meaning to write in for a while. It came after a discussion on pets.

Me - "What pet would you like?"
John - "I have cats."
Me - "But if you could have another pet, what would you choose?"
John. - "Oh. I don't know. Something normal, like a dog or a whale. Or maybe a pelican."

News from the zoo