Those Moments That Bring Life Into Sharp Focus

It's easy to let life slip by us, isn't it?  I know I'm guilty (too guilty) of finding time to play on Facebook or Twitter, but "forgetting" to do an activity that I told the kids I would do.  Or, I grumble when my Mom asks a favor while I think I am too busy doing something that probably isn't all that important anyway.

I think that there are so many of us that find ourselves caught up in life, but not in the important things -- those things that, if we knew we would die tomorrow, we would wish we had focused on more.  Probably very few (hopefully none of us) would say, "Wow -- I wish I had been more active on my blog."  Instead, I suspect many of us would cite things like our families, our friends, or our church, for example.

Every so often though, something happens that brings life into sharp focus.  You have a sudden clear vision of exactly what is important, and also of what really isn't all that important.  It has been my experience that it usually happens a moment, and it's not something that you expected.

It's something like when we were driving to an All Saints Party in November, and I got the cell phone call from my Mom that started like this, "Dad is at Grandma's house, and he thinks she may have died.  I'm on my way there now."

I vowed that I wanted to bring more focus to my life after that.  But, it's so easy to forget about that once things start to settle.  This seems especially true because those kinds of moments don't usually happen to someone often.  It would seem that I had another one of those moments less than a week ago.  (It doesn't seem right to have them happen so close to each other.)

Let me tell you, while the unexpected death of your 90 year old Grandmother puts a focus on your life, seeing a pediatric cardiologist who is normally jovial walk into a room after "checking some measurements against the normal range" with a serious look and a deep breath, life gets a whole lot more focused.  Then, when words like aortic aneurysm are said as the doctor looks from you to your eight year old child, the priorities in your life become, in an instant, crystal clear.  

I think that over our Christmas break, I need to make some plans to help me live so that my true priorities really come through in my life.  I know all too well that once life settles, it's easy to forget that sharp focus.  But I also know that I need more of it.

If anyone has some great tips of how to manage your time or how to work on priorities, I would really appreciate it!

(I don't really want to get into a lot of medical details right now, but I also don't want anyone reading to worry that we are looking at anything life threatening right now.  Although we'll have to worry about things a lot sooner than we once thought, we're still fine enough for now.)


 





photo by ToniVC

Encouraging Kids to Try a Wider Variety of Foods (WFMW #65)

I have a confession to make about something that is working for me. And, do you know what? I refuse to be ashamed.

I have begun bribing my kids to eat fruits and vegetables, as well as to try new foods.

Yep -- I pay them, and I am not shy about telling you that.

I have very picky (and sensory sensitive) sons, and then a daughter who is typically a lot more willing to eat a variety of things. So, this is easy money for her. And, really, that's what I thought it would end with -- some easy money for the four year old.

Instead, for the low, low price of one dime, my kids who often shunned healthy food are now trying things that I would never have dreamed they would try. And, the way I figure it, even if I am giving them a dime at each meal, it is costing me less than $1.00 a day to widen their food horizons. And, as far as I'm concerned -- it's worth it.

Now, I will note that there are some ground rules to this. I declare what is the money earning item at any given meal and I also say how much has to be eaten to get that dime. For instance, when we were having baby carrots they other day, they had to eat at least one baby carrot. So, there is no bitty bites for money.

I realize that some people may find this horrific, but I'm keeping it real here. As long as the kids are willing to work for peanuts dimes, then I'll keep passing them out. Because, really -- in just a week's time, they are finding things that they never wanted to eat that they are saying, "Wow -- that tastes pretty good."

So, I guess that means that...well...bribery works for me. But, watching my picky, Autistic son down a carrot works for me too. And, that's worth way more than a dime.

For more tips, tricks, and ideas from around the blogosphere, check out Works for Me Wednesday at Rocks in my Dryer.

photo by photobunny

Just how common are heart murmurs in kids?

I was surprised to find out the other day (while at the doctor's office with the kids) that approximately 80% of kids will have an innocent heart murmur at some time in their youth.

Well...I thought this was an interesting fact. You know, like interesting in the way that you aren't sure that you believe it. But, I like our doctor and I trust him (heck -- he used to be MY doctor throughout my teen years, just after he became a doctor). Still -- I googled this little factoid. And, just to truly test it, I didn't put in the percentage, just asked what percentage.

Go figure. Apparently our doctor is, indeed, correct. I found hits on lots of sites with that 80% figure. Here is one of the sites, which also has a whole host of information on heart murmurs.

So, why did this all come up, you ask? The funny thing is, Eric didn't ask. I told him this factoid, and he didn't even think to say, "Hey -- why did this come up?" (Unlike my Mom, who seemed to almost immediately know where it was going.)

I then shared with Eric that our doctor said the percentage of murmurs, and said, "Most of them are innocent." I had to laugh, and then said to the doctor, with a quick turn of the head to look at Jack, "Yes, and some of them are guilty."

See...that's why Eric didn't ask. Jack has one of those not so innocent murmurs (Aortic Stenosis due to a Bicuspid Aortic Valve). We are thankful that he has not had to have it repaired, although it will have to be repaired one day. But, heart defects -- those are old hat around our house. Jack has had just about as many echocardiograms as he has had birthdays.

But, this wasn't about Jack. In fact, it wasn't Jack's appointment. It was Molly's appointment.

So, needless to say, when the words "she" and "heart murmur" went in a sentence together, my immediate reponse was a surprised, "What?"

Obviously, I was quickly calmed enough to almost immediately give Jack a hard time about his "guilty" murmur. It helped to hear that innocent murmurs are so common in kids. Plus, my doctor assured me that he would keep an eye on it, and given our family history, we would definitely do an echocardiogram if it doesn't go away and ever sounds a little "guilty." I was accepting of all that, and am hopeful that this will just be one of those things that will pass. (Although, it did sink in a bit more when I saw that he had written it on her physical form for preschool.)

Hey -- want another interesting factoid about heart murmurs and kids? Apparently they can sound louder when a child has a fever! So, it may be that sometime when your little one is sick, they could find an innocent murmur for the first time.

Another interesting factoid? Molly has had an echocardiogram before. Why is this interesting? It was when I was around 22 weeks pregnant with her! Given Jack's heart defect, they did an echocardiogram in utero. Crazy, huh?

Thus ends my soiree into the medical field, with one last piece of advice -- don't freak out if you find that your child turns out to have a heart murmur one day, out of the blue, at the doctor's office. Apparently it's not quite as uncommon as one would suspect.



photo by Mathieu Struck

Signing with Kids (Includes Links)

When I used to teach in the public schools, one of the kindergartners favorite things was learning new signs (using American Sign Language). I taught them the signs for each of the colors of the tables that they sat at (for silent releasing of tables before lunch), as well as just about anything else that came up that I also knew the sign for. (And, of course, there were times that I went out in search of the sign for something that the kids were just dying to know.)



My interest in learning simple signs started when Jack was a baby. At 16 months old, he didn't make any sounds. Not "baba" or "mama" or anything like that. The only sound he made was to cry. And, even worse -- he didn't seem to really respond to anything we said to him. We could repeat his name ten times with varying volumes and tones before he might finally turn his head to us.

After we got him into Early Intervention, we then started learning and using signs with him. It took him a while, but after a few months, he started using some of the signs that we had been using! We were finally able to communicate with him!

As time went on, many of the first few words that he finally produced were those that he had already long since been signing. (I will add that after going back to get my masters in special education, and then working in early intervention as a therapist, I have seen this many times -- the children start using the words they know the signs for first, and then eventually drop the signing because they can use the words.)

Jack, of course, eventually did start talking. It was not an easy road to him becoming a fluent speaker. And, it also took a while before he really responded to us speaking to him. But, now at seven, he doesn't even receive speech therapy any more. And, truth be told, he has a hard time stopping from talking. It is not unusual for us to say, "Jack -- can you please stop talking for just one minute?" (Oh, and though he doesn't always respond to us still, it's not that he doesn't hear us. He appears to have super human hearing, actually, and can hear something from across the house like nobody's business. Well...especially when it's not his business!)

Signing definitely worked for us! Here are some great resources for learning signs to use with young children:

Signing Times Videos

American Sign Language Browser

ASL for Babies

Kindersigns

About.com List of Books about Signing with Babies

You can check out more great tips and ideas at Rocks in my Dryer's Works for Me Wednesday!

Photo by midnightglory

So, are you clairvoyant or do you just like to watch sports?

Our whole family has really been enjoying following the Olympics. I have to admit, I have been watching it every night until the wee hours of the morning. Quite frankly, I know we'll miss it.

Noah just noticed that they mentioned Olympics.com on some of the commercials, and he wanted to check it out. So, after we brought the site up and got confused for a minute, and then realized that we had to click on the option to change it to English instead of Chinese, Noah wanted to dig right in and start watching videos.

But, then I went to a girls night out/baby shower, and didn't realize that Noah watched quite a lot of events on the computer. He was thrilled to tell me all about them when I got home.

Finally, at one point, he said, "Yeah, you know, Mom...it was...well, you know..."

"No, I don't know, Noah. What?"

(This is not an uncommon conversation for us to have, particularly if there is something distracting in the room -- like someone breathing.)

"Oh, you know. It was E.S.P."

I tried to think of how ESP tied into watching the Olympics on the computer. After a moment, I decided that perhaps I had figured it out.

"Noah, are you saying that you saw some sports on ESPN or that you know what was going to happen because you have E.S.P?"

"Oh yeah," he said in a long, drawn out voice, "ESPN. Yes, yes, that's it. I watched it on ESPN."

I couldn't decide what was funnier. Was it the ESP / ESPN confusion or the fact that our nine year old son that knows very little about sports and has parents that don't watch sports knew about ESPN.

There's a Reason Only Kids with ADHD Should Take ADHD Meds

Although our Jack does not have ADHD, he sometimes shows some of the attributes, and so this week found us trying for a medication with him. In the past, we had tried Metadate and Adderall.

Although the Metadate seemed to work well, it also started to cause him to have hallucinations. Yes, hallucinations. We, of course, promptly ceased taking that. (Time on meds: 3 days.)

Then, about a year later, we decided to give Adderall a spin. That was also very short lived. You see, Jack is kind of high anxiety. And, when I say kind of, that is me being kind. It is only in retrospect that I realize now (after yesterday) that this has all been really inappropriate, as all of the medications have advised that they might cause high anxiety. Why would we give that to our high anxiety, overly emotional child? Oh...I don't know. Maybe because sometimes we get tired, and we're hoping for an easier fix. (I do have to note here that Noah is medicated on school days, and his medication -- the same one that caused Jack to have hallucinations, works wonderfully for him. It actually makes him feel better. So, just so we don't sound like monsters trying out meds on our kids -- Noah prefers to be on his, and we were hoping the same for Jack.) Anyway, the Adderall caused him to start having motor tics, on top of SUPER high anxiety, so we stopped that one too. (Time on Meds: 2 days.)

And, so here we are...at yesterday. At the boys' yearly check up, our doctor suggested maybe Daytrana (a patch) would help. He did point out, however, that the active ingredient was the same as the hallucination medicine. (Which, of course, is also the one that causes Noah no hallucinations, and helps him focus better.) (TIME ON MEDS WITH PATCH: 8 hours)

I'll not get into all the details, but I'll just cut to the chase. There is a reason that only kids with ADHD should take ADHD meds. I would have been happy to talk to you about it at length last night. You know, like at 11 pm when Jack was running around the living room. Or, at midnight when he was climbing on a climber that is also in our living room. (All while having motor tics. I did later see that it suggests you not take it if you have a family history of Tourette's. Our doctor doesn't know that we do, but my first cousin does have Tourette's. I didn't think to mention this, apparently.)

Anyway, as I was saying -- I also would have been happy to talk to you about it at 1 am, when he asked, "Hey Mom, would it be okay if I play on the computer now?" No, I told him.

Or, at 2 am, when he asked, "Mom -- do you think that I will ever sleep again?"

Or, at 3 am, when I told him, "Eventually, I'm going to have to have Dad come sit up with you."

But, not at 3:30 am, because that's when he finally went to bed, and I did too.

Apparently, I potentially could have then talked about it at 7:30 am when he was back up, saying he was ready to wake up. (He usually sleeps for 10 - 12 hours per night.) But, thankfully, Eric worked from home this morning, so that at least I could get in seven hours of sleep, even if Jack had no desire for it.

But, I can tell you now that we're done with meds for now. At least for Jack. Apparently we all need to work on being a whole lot more patient, because, at the very least, I need the sleep more than I need my sanity.

Photo by hipsxxhearts