Making Her Understand

Tonight we went to our favorite Mexican restaurant for dinner.  In order to get there, we go past the school where Gabby spent the last two and a half years.  We don’t often have to take this route, but when we do Peanut immediately recognizes the intersection before the school and gets excited. 

In the past it was no big deal.  I’d say something to the effect of, “Yep, there’s your school, but we’re not going there today.”  But, now it’s not that simple.

Tomorrow I enroll the girls in school.  This year I won’t be going to WG.  I’ll simply be going to BE.  This year Peanut will be starting kindergarten at our home school.  She won’t ride the bus anymore.  She won’t see Ms. M anymore.  She won’t have her wonderful playground anymore.  Sure she has a lot of new and exciting things to look forward to, but it will be an adjustment.

I don’t know if I’m handling this correctly, but I don’t believe Peanut can truly grasp this concept.  The girls will often start to explain to her that she’s not going to WG anymore.  That she is going to go to school at BE.  Personally, I think trying to explain this only confuses her and what little she does grasp only seems to upset her.  I think it will be easier to simply start the new year slowly.  Let her get used to her new surroundings.  Taking it day by day and being there for her when she seem frustrated and upset by the unfamiliar surroundings. 

I’m grateful that she is familiar with BE because of her sisters.  The school is not completely foreign to her.  Many of the staff and students already know her.  But now it won’t be just a place to visit, but a place where the rules apply to her, too.

She is ready to go back to school.  She often brings me pictures of the school bus or tries to get her school backpack. I just hope I can help her understand how things are going to be different now.

I Scream, You Scream

When I was a kid, we rarely got ice cream from the ice cream truck.  We really didn’t need to because there was always fudgesicles, popsicles or other ice cream novelties in the house and it was far more economical than the ice cream truck’. 

Of course, this didn’t really stop me from wanting one.  What kid can resist that van driving through the neighborhood, music blaring, bell ringing and all those treats plastered on the side of the van?  The draw was as strong as the child catcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang when he was disguised as the candy man.

One summer my sister and I were out playing when the ice cream man came driving by.  Although we didn’t often stop the ice cream man, we certainly knew how.  We went running down the street with our arm held out in the stop position.  We had no intent in actually stopping him, we were just being goofy.

When he did stop, I was terrified.  Not one to bend the rules, I was sure we were going to get in trouble.  I ran all the way home and into the house.  My sister did not follow as I expected.  I remember sitting in my mother’s lap convinced the ice cream man had captured her.

Some time later she came wandering in without a care in the world.  When I asked her what happened, she said talked to the guy for a little while and then they went on their merry way.  No big deal.

I wasn’t convinced, though.  I knew he was out to get me.  For the rest of that summer I didn’t want to go outside.  I was sure he would be waiting.  If I did get forced outside by my mother, I stayed close to the house or in the back yard.

He never did get me.  I eventually realized I was in no real trouble.  The following summer all was forgotten but every time I hear that music and bells, I’m transported back to the summer I was afraid of the ice cream man.

Gerber Can Kiss My Aaaaa----pplesauce!

When Michelangelo was a toddler, I didn’t do a great job of serving her a well rounded diet.  She basically lived on Gerber meat sticks (she preferred the chicken) and canned peaches or pears.  I would buy the big cans of peaches and pears from Aldi’s and would have to stock up on them.  Before that, I chose baby food that I thought she would like, skipping the more risky choices like creamed spinach.  The one vegetable she loved was broccoli, although it didn’t love her and gave her terrible tummy aches.  She was somewhat of a picky eater in the early years of her life. I was finding myself turn into the short order cook I swore I would never be.

When Diva came along, I vowed to change my ways.  There was a Gerber commercial at the time with a little girl who grew up eating a wide variety of Gerber food which resulted in her eating a wide variety of healthy foods.  From the beginning, Diva was introduced to a every fruit and vegetable Gerber put in a jar.  She ate it all.  As she got older, I continued to give her everything we ate, including canned spinach, even though it make my husband sick to even smell it.  She loved the stuff.  She wasn’t really a fan of broccoli, but I figured the spinach made up for it.

Diva was a great eater.  She ate almost anything I put on her plate and rarely turned her nose up at anything.  Over the past year or so, though, that has changed.

Gone are the days of eating spinach.  Gone are the days of happily eating what is put in front of her.  “I don’t like hamburgers.”  “I don’t like milk.”  “I don’t like bananas anymore.”  “I don’t want chicken.”  If you ask her how she likes something, she’ll tell you.  The girl is brutally honest.  Her favorite response is the thumbs up or down.  Often I get the sideways thumb.  I usually regret asking and tell her to eat it anyway, I don’t want to hear it.  The girl would be happy to eat peanut butter and jelly at every meal.  That and pancakes, that is.

There are two things that I truly believe she does not like: fish and potatoes.  However, she will eat fish sticks and french fries.  I don’t make her eat the fish, although I have her try it again from time to time.  The potatoes she has to eat a little of.

Diva and Michelangelo seem to have done a flip.  Michelangelo eats most everything I serve without complaint where Diva seems to complain at every meal. Every time we have one of these mini meal battles I think back to that commercial.  I can still see that pretty little blond girl with her little red hat eating an apple and smiling.  It just makes me want to scream. 

I’m hoping it’s just a phase and she’ll eventually grow back out of it. 

The Art of Comparing

My friend over at Just RK recently wrote a post about comparing your child with Down syndrome to your other children.  In RK’s instance, her oldest daughter has Down syndrome and she is starting to see her younger daughter catch up and sometimes pass her oldest on many fronts.  RK had a friend who was noticing the same and was asking for advice on how to deal with it. 

My situation is different and I have to admit, I’ve always been grateful that my youngest is the one with Down syndrome.  I believe God knew what he was doing when he chose my children's birth order.  However, I have still had many opportunities to compare Peanut to other children.  For her first 3 years of life I ran a daycare and often saw the typical child pass up my daughter.  In fact, I often found myself trying to work with the typical kids to accomplish a goal much like I would with Peanut and you could tell they did not want my help.  They preferred to figure it out on their own.  In addition to the day care kids, there were plenty of friends and family with children the same age.  I often find myself not only comparing Peanut to typical children her age, but to other children with Down syndrome. 

We all know that we aren’t supposed to compare our children to others.  Even typical children develop at their own rate.  Diva was quite content to lay on the floor and was well past 8 months before she started crawling or even rolling over regularly.  You wouldn’t know that today, though.

The problem with comparing your children isn’t so much that you do it, but how you do it.  Bottom line is, we’re going to do it.  RK raised a very good point in her post:  We need to focus on the good as well as the bad.  Here, is where I fail most of the time.  I know what Peanut can do.  Her gross motor skills are her strength.  I can take her to a play ground and be pretty confident she’s going to be ok on most ladders and slides.  I don’t watch other kids in this situation, because, frankly, I don’t care where other kids are developmentally.

Speech is where it’s at for me.  Even as I read RK’s post, it was like a dagger in the heart hearing how Braska is doing with speech.  Peanut is not there.  There I was comparing again!

I think there is a balance, though.  There are some benefits to observing what other children can do if you stay positive about it.  It can help you realize the possibilities and prevent you from unfairly limiting your child.  It can challenge your child to grow.  As a kid, I often challenged myself against someone who was academically better than me.  Although I may not have always surpassed them, I believe I did better in school because of it.

In a world where we are constantly being told we’re doing it wrong, we need to give ourselves a pass.  We need to remember that what we are feeling is natural and to compare is human.  Just remember to focus on the positive, too. As long as you don’t breach that line of “one up-man’s ship!”

I'd Rather Eat Dirt

My dentist has been bugging me to have my 3 remaining wisdom teeth removed.  I've been putting it off for years, but now I have a cavity in one of them and it's getting worse.  It doesn't bother me, but I'm guessing it's not really a good idea to just let it decay.

The thought of this procedure is terrifying to me.  There are many reasons for this, one of them being my previous experience when I had one wisdom tooth removed while I was 5 months pregnant with Peanut.  Being awake for this procedure didn't really bother me.  Not even when I could hear the doctor breaking and scraping that tooth out of my head.  The real problem came with the rest of the day.  Being pregnant, I was more prone to bleeding and I bled a lot.  I remember changing that gauze over and over again wondering if it was ever going to stop.  I remember eating ramen soup with the gauze still in my mouth and the bleeding continuing.  It was a miserable experience and one I don't want to repeat.

Add to that the irrational fear of the anesthesia and story of an 18 year old boy going in for this routine procedure and ending up in ICU.  I don't know what happened to that boy, but I can't forget that family sitting in that waiting room. 

Six months ago the hygienist took a picture of my wisdom tooth and stuck it up on their fancy computer screen so I could see the decay.  Did I mention all things related to teeth gross me out, even if it's dealing with kids wiggly tooth.  I really hate the tooth fairy.  I really could have done without that, but she made her point.  I took the referral and told my dentist, through tears, some of my fears, irrational as they may be.  She gave me a referral to an oral surgeon that she assured me would be a good fit and recommended I ask for a specific nurse to help me through the consultation.

I put it off.  I had plenty of excuses. 

Today I had another dentist appointment and was informed the cavity was getting worse.  I vowed I would call the oral surgeon today and I did.  It could not have gone worse.

First, the person I was speaking with was new so she kept putting me on hold.  Then she told me there was a $75 consultation fee that may not be covered by my insurance.  Then she told me I could skip the consultation and just set up the surgery.  I'm thinking, I don't want to fork out $75, but I need a little TLC here.  I asked if the nurse could at least call me.  She didn't know, but took my number to give her the message.  We proceeded to scheduling the surgery and said she had an opening Monday.  MONDAY people!  Wait a minute!  I'm barely coming to terms with doing this and you want to do it in less than a week?!  I don't even know if I can get someone to be there with me and take me home much less be emotionally ready.

I took a couple of dates and times (one for the Monday time and one for Tuesday) and told her I'd call her back.  I called hubby and of course he gets all business on me about costs and insurance and logistics about time off, etc.  We need to find out this, and that and whatever.  I'm having a hard enough time dealing with the surgery itself, I don't need all the costs and time off questions piled on top of it.  I was being reduced to a bundle of nerves and tears.   Don't misunderstand, he wasn't being insensitive and when he realized how upset I was he said we'd discuss it at home and not to worry about it.  For now, I'm back to procrastinating.

Yeah, I think I'd rather eat dirt or maybe just let the thing fall out on it's own.