Monday, November 5, 2012

First Sunday in November

What has been going on with the Wearden clan?

Pepper was finally released from the animal hospital about 5 days after her surgery. Now she seems right as rain, but was on a whole fistful of pills and is still more or less bald. They took her picture and made her a little doggie model for their website. http://www.animalhospitaloflubbock.com/ If you are interested in seeing her. Since being home, she has gotten rather very fat and more than a little spoiled; I will be taking her in next week to recheck her liver values and see how it is doing. The vet worked with us considerably by knocking the price almost in half, but it was still pretty hefty and we will be paying on it for a while.

The weekend before Halloween, my cousin Jacob got married to his incredibly sweet long term girlfriend Anna. Michael got a few days off of work so that we could all drive down and go to the wedding; on Thursday, we drove to Amber and Jud's house in Abilene to spend the night before continuing on to DFW for the wedding Friday night. A little while after we got to Amber's, Gabriel vomited all over himself and the bed, then proceeded to throw up every half hour for the rest of the night.

Michael stayed with Gabriel in Abilene while Jarrod, the two healthy children, and I went on to the wedding. It stinks that Michael was unable to be there because he had formed a friendship with Jake while they were living in Lubbock. It was held in a little chapel on a ranch, a small, intimate ceremony that was beautiful and moving. Jacob and Anna are going to be so happy together. Afterwards, they had a reception where they served fajitas and I got to visit with my Dad's side of the family including my exuberant grandmother, vivacious aunt, and fabulous cousin Sean, Jake's brother. Now Sean and I are texting back and forth: it is awesome to have forged a friendship with him despite the nine year age difference.

We spent the night at Granny and Papa's, then headed back to Abilene to get Michael and Gabriel mid-morning. Benjamin promptly goes to Daddy the first chance he gets....and becomes ill all over his shirt. The trip home cannot be delayed as Amber and Jud aren't even home for the weekend, so I ride in the back next to poor pitiful Ben and we head back to Lubbock. Around Slaton, half way home, Emerald upchucks all over herself and the car.
Needless to say, not the best road trip ever, though it was wonderful that I made it to my dear cousin's wedding. Michael and I both got the stomach bug after coming back; Benjamin kept relapsing all the way through Saturday, which prompted an emergency room visit due to dehydration concerns. Little guy is finally back to feeling his old self again, which is a blessed relief.

On Halloween, Benjamin was still feeling poorly and Gabriel had developed an intense dislike for the material of his costume and having things pulled on over his head, so we were unable to do anything to really celebrate with them. Rhonda and Ken took Emerald to their church for Trunk or Treat--Emerald dressed up as Snow White. She makes a very pretty redheaded princess, and the highlight of the night for her was getting her picture taken with Captain America and buying blue cotton candy to share with me. When she got home, I divvied up the candy between her and her two brothers, which she was incredibly generous and gracious about; I particularly liked the limited candy aspect of the whole thing because in years previous, I have been left with entirely too much left over that goes to waste.

Neither Emerald's or Gabriel's school were doing in-school Halloween events. Emerald's held a fall festival the Saturday before that we were out of town for; Gabriel's had a 50's dress-up day. I was bummed because I had gotten Gabriel a Bob the Tomato costume to wear months and months ago thinking that he would love it and then he wouldn't even wear it. I do understand the school's reluctance for costumes--you open yourself up to too many problems from scary costumes to inappropriate costumes to offending parents that don't want their children participating in Halloween and therefore excluding their children from a school-wide event...I just found it odd when I first heard. I mean, didn't we use to dress up when we went to school? Or am I just remembering wrong?

Anyways, Gabe and I had our own plans for Halloween--a follow-up check up with Dr. Rogers, the developmental pediatrician.

The main concerns we were bringing to her were:
1. Gabriel's complete and utter inability, even after 12 weeks of school, to sit or attend to any task without constant adult support.
2. His over-activity level that is getting increasingly difficult to control the older and stronger he gets; it interferes with his focus in therapies and at school. He gets so excited or overwhelmed that he can't control himself, which leads us to...
3. ....emotional instability and unpredictability, causing stressful and distressing time at home and at school. He tantrums and has meltdowns, bites, pinches, scratches, pulls hair, both maliciously and accidentally. We were at the point where we were having more bad days than good by far.
4. The still present (though improving) playing with his poop problem.

Do not get me wrong--I am absolutely not complaining. It is just hard to know what to expect, what is "normal" and abnormal, what we should be concerned about...I would personally rather bring it up to the doctor and have them tell me that it is nothing worth worrying about than just stay quiet and wonder. Usually it works out in my favor because they are able to give us useful insights to correcting the problem areas.

As it is, because he is so tiny we have limited options for correction. They prescribed him behavior therapy with a child psychologist named Dr. Ratheal, as well as a prescription for Trileptal. It is actually a seizure medication but it helps moderate his moods.

He started the Trileptal on Wednesday--he takes it twice a day, once in the morning and once at night--and thus far the only results we have seen is a huge upswing in his appetite. Apparently, it can make children ravenous, which means Gabriel is begging constantly at school and at home for food. It is upsetting because you don't want to tell him no, but you also don't want to let him eat and eat all day long.

We are seeing some more signing from him, specifically "all done" which can be an immense frustration because he will say "all done" because he wants to watch his show but Emerald is using the TV,  or he will sign "all done" because he wants to go inside while he is supposed to be enjoying outside time. (He will thank me when the weather gets frosty and he can't spend as much time out back as he used to.)

Emerald is still doing very well in school. She primarily plays with Faith and Caleb still; she has been begging me to let her play basketball but I am not really clear on where a 5 year old girl can go to play basketball. Fridays she cheers for the football team, looking so precious in her blue and yellow uniform. Rhonda says Emerald looks so disappointed that she doesn't get to cheer on the field though. More or less she gets all blue bears--when she does get all blue bears in a week, she gets a new charm for her charm bracelet and I let her call her Grandma Pat on Saturday for a chat. If she gets a yellow bear though, she does not get a charm and she is grounded from the DS and the iPad for the afternoon. Those seem to be motivating factors for her because she tries really hard to behave in school. Of course I understand we all have off days.

I am glad we put her in Pre-K instead of Kindergarten, but sometimes the material seems a bit easy for her. She is all ready sight reading a lot of words, can read and write all the numbers and letters, count up to 100, and spell several names. This is actually a good thing because that means she can focus on the things she is not so great at, including taking care of herself without mommy around, school protocol and rules and expectations, and being a good friend. They also teach her the Bible Stories and she just loves that.

Benjamin and I are getting along famously. In the mornings, we play together until he takes a nap, when I get to do my quiet time mommy things like crochet or read or play "Fallout 3". After that, we clean up before Daddy gets home for lunch, and then it's the afternoon and the older kids start coming back home, so we have Gabe's therapies and getting ready for dinner.

Benjamin can be a lot more tiring than either of the other two at that age--he is walking a lot sooner than they did; Emerald just liked to sit with me and read books, take long naps, and sing songs. Gabriel would sit in his swing all day if I would let him, only getting out to go for rides in the stroller--very serious, quiet baby boy. Benji runs and climbs and eats things; he has no patience for movies or TV or reading, always wanting to be on the go. In the nursery, he mostly likes to tackle the other babies to the ground, pull the girls' headbands or hair bows out, and slam doors.

He is just all over the place, but people just adore him. Wherever we go, we are getting compliments on how sweet he is, all the while he is smiling toothily and waving to the girls, trying to goad the men into yelling contests, and struggling to run free.

The other day I had to go to the bank to open a bank account for Gabriel; Benjamin slipped his stroller and went strutting, ending up with an entourage of nearly the entire floor of the bank following him and laughing at his baby antics. Without fail, I always hear the same thing: He look like a Gerber Baby! (Which, in translation means, "what a big fat healthy child!")

Michael is getting a lot of notice at work, both for selling Suburu like mad and for taking on the Herculean task of internet sales and managing, work intended for an entire team of people but is being fielded by him alone. I am so impressed and grateful for how hard he works, and that his work is not going unnoticed.

Not much other than that is going on really. I could tell you about what show I am watching (Jericho) or the books I am reading (Love in the Time of Cholera; The Drawing of the Three; Valeria's Cross) but the fact of the matter is...most of y'all come here to hear about the cute little Wearden children, not about the otherwise exhausted and lifeless drones that take care of them. And you know what? I can't blame ya. Those little sweethearts are my life's work, so I am infinitely more proud and interested in them than I am in static Andie.

Until next time (which I am hoping won't be quite such a long time as this one in coming), hope you are having a blessed and thankful November!

--Andie

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