I'm Feeling Bloggy

I've been struggling with something lately.  And it is a familiar struggle and I keep wondering where that outlet is...and I think it is this blog.  I have processed through a lot of things on this blog.  And if you've been following along (or not), you know that my son has had his share of medical issues and lots of therapies and OT and...  With all of those journey's I was blogging through them.  Somehow it makes it easier to type something out to a bunch of people (or no one at all) who don't know you.  People who won't somehow judge the decisions you make.  Who can hear (or read) what you are really feeling.  That trudging through some of these decisions is just fucking hard.  And that trying to do right by your kid is a full time job.

And with a new situation that has NO easy answer at all.  I am feeling like I need the outlet.  So onward I go.

Here's what's going on.  The Boy is a little dude.  Always has been.  And because of his struggle to gain and maintain weight he has been followed by a pediatric gastroenterologist for almost his entire life.  She's the same lady...we see her every 3 or 6 months for a weight check.  She puts him on, and then off, a medication to stimulate his appetite.  He has been tracked forever.  He has had all the blood work, and all the tests.  He is just little, and probably always will be.  I am only 5'3" and his donor Dad is around 5'6" or maybe 5'7" at best.  So we aren't expecting him to shoot up to 6 feet.

In my mind I always assumed he would be 5'6" or 5'7" like his biological Dad.  That's still on the "littler" side but totally respectable.  So I have been functioning with this belief for literally his entire life.  On Friday of last week we were back for our follow up.  The previous visit she had done and entire panel of tests, and also sent him to a cardiologist to make sure he didn't have a hole in his heart (He doesn't.  But man; that was super fun).  So we were getting all the results.  Everything normal...not allergic to anything, doesn't have Celiac disease, growth hormones are normal, can tell he's taking a vitamin because his iron is fine...blah blah blah...it's all fine.  He's perfectly healthy.  He's just little.

So she shuts her folder and looks at us (me and my mom) and goes, "I think this is just our boy.  We have followed him forever and he just seems to continue along this same path.  I think put him on a regiment of medicine every other month, and I'll see you back here in six months."

As we started to pack up I asked..."Just wondering, if he does just continue along this path...and keep doing what he's doing...how tall can we expect him to be as an adult?"

She flips open her folder and looks down at it and casually says, "Oh...about 5'4" or 5'4 1/2"..."  (GULP!)

I was a little disturbed by this and I asked if that was it.  She said the only other option to look into is Growth Hormones.  And that...is why I turn to this blog.  This is a totally controversial subject and I honestly just need a place to type out my feelings.  To navigate my way through what to do next and how to best take care of my boy.

I will tell you this.  Going into this meeting on Friday I would have never considered Growth Hormones.  If he was going to be 5'6" or 5'7" then there would never be a need.  So I never even considered it.  All of a sudden I wanted more information.  How many inches could that potentially buy?  (3 to 4).  Do you really have to give them a shot every day for several years? (yes).  What are the side effects? (talk to the endo).  Does insurance cover it?  (sometimes yes, sometimes no.  It's (OF COURSE) a much more complicated answer than that).  What ages are you supposed to do it?  (starts as young as 5 or 6 and goes until right before puberty usually).

And then I came home and looked at my sweet little boy's face and I almost died.  I cried and I cried.  And I know it could be much worse, and I know how lucky I am to have him totally healthy...  But still.  My boy as a grown man would only be 5'4".  Will he ever go to prom?  Will kids tease him about it his whole life?  A short guy that also has bright red hair?  Seriously?  And then I pick my shit up and I realize that I happen to be lucky enough to be raising one of the most amazing kids on the planet.  And that even if he happens to be the shortest kid at his summer camp, every single day a gaggle of kids come and gather around him when we arrive in the morning.  Girls and boys.  All the ages.  He knows them all.  And he hangs with them all.  Everyone who meets that kid sees the sunshine in his heart...  I hope it always stays that way.

So here is where we stand as of today.  I called to make an appointment at the endocrinologist and since he hasn't been seen there as a patient since 2008, he is considered a new patient.  So I have to call his gastro doctor and have her call in a referral.  Oh, and by the way, there is about a 4 to 6 month wait for the next open appointment.  Fantastic.  So I call the gastro and ask them to take care of it and ask if she will sweet talk them into getting me in sooner.  She is a fantastic advocate.  Woman knows how to get things done!  So now we wait.  And I google things obsessively and change my mind on an hourly basis.  And I go through my life looking at every single man I see and analyzing his height, and if he seems at all on the short size, I am immediately looking for clues as to whether he is living a happy and fulfilling life.  It's ridiculous.  My brain is spinning.

Disclaimer:  I literally just viewed my own blog for the first time in a really long time.  Several updates need to be made; clearly.  No clue how to do that.  :)  Also if you happen to know me in real life, or on Facebook, please do not link me personally to this blog.  I like to keep this as private as possible.  Thanks.

School Pictures

Okay since I can't seem to manage a proper post...I will at the very least give you all my children's school pictures for this year.  The Boy is going to turn 7 in January so is 6 now, and The Girl is 3 1/2.  Going on 35.  :)

Hope all is well with everyone.  I read you all, but just can't manage to handle posting.  More later!  Have a great weekend everyone!

Wordless Wednesday

Pictures from our trip up to my family cabin the week before school started:

BUSTED!!

Here are The Boy and The Girl this morning on The Boy's first official day of First Grade.  He has apparently come to the age where he refuses to smile and stand nicely for a photo.  So I was going through all the shots I took this morning trying to look for a decent one when I saw the one above.  Now to the naked eye I can tell you that this is a shot of both of my kids doing Ninjago moves.  I told you on my last post that my son is currently obsessed.  Well guess what?  He is about to lose ALL OF THEM.

A little back story.  So all summer long he played with his friends at camp with his Ninjagos.  If you are fortunate enough to NOT know what these evil little toys are, let me tell you that the folks over at Lego are not idiots.  So they are expensive.  They cost a lot of money.  And of course you need ALL of them to play properly (according to The Boy).  So he had quite a collection.  A few weeks into the summer I found out that he had been sneaking them to camp with him and "trading" them with the other campers.  Although half the time he didn't get anything for the trade.  So that no longer is a trade...it's giving your shit away.  Long story short...we had lots of talks and by the end of the summer he only had 3 guys left.  I figured it was a life lesson for him and since I know that his school does NOT allow any toys or anything to come to school I figured...lesson learned.

So yesterday apparently after his half-day of school my mom took him to the mall and they just "happened" to go by the Lego store where they just "happened" to find out that the green Ninja had been released a couple of weeks early.  So my mom bought it for him.  I had a little "chat" with her when they came home about this ("Why the HELL would you buy him more Ninjago's after what happened this summer?  I thought we agreed on the life lesson etc..."  Her answer, "It was his first day of school...and you should have seen his eyes when he saw the green ninja...and he's such a good boy...and now that summer camp is over he won't be trading them..." etc...).  So anyway he ended up with a few new things yesterday AGAINST my will.

When he told me about seeing his friends yesterday he told me that one of his buddies had "snuck" a Ninja into school yesterday.  We had a long talk about this and about what happened at camp, and about how last year he got in trouble for bringing toys to school and he KNOWS that he can't do that...and on and on and on...  So this morning he asked where his backpack was and then told me he was taking it into his room.  I reiterated that if he even THOUGHT about bringing or sneaking something into school that he would lose ALL of his Ninjas.  "No way Mommy...I know the rules...I am not going to do that..."  Many, many conversations about this.  The rule was very clear.

So as I am looking through his "first day of school" pictures right now for one to post on Facebook and to send to the Ex, I look closer at the picture above and see this:

I don't know if you can see in this picture on the internet or not, but that is a god-damned green ninja that he is hiding in his hand in this picture.  That little *&%^$ snuck one to school anyway.  I cannot even tell you how mad I am.  Or how disappointed rather.  He is already at the stage where he is BLATANTLY lying to me?  Really?

So I have cleaned the entire house clear of Ninjago's and when he comes home I will calmly tell him that he has lost all of his Ninjas.  And that I hope it was worth it.  And that we don't LIE to our mother. And we don't blatantly break the rules at school.  And that we need to learn the value of someone giving you a gift.  That is...if I don't kill him first.

Back from the Trenches...

Is anyone still here?  I have actually had a couple people contact me and tell me to get the hell back onto my blog, so here I am.

As the lack of posting might show, my life has been super busy lately.  Nothing earth shattering is really going on, but my work has gotten so busy that I don't have much time for leisure anymore.  The short version is that I took on a partner about a year ago (I think I might have posted about that at some point), and therefore started to expand my business.  I am very fortunate in this economy to be able to make that happen.  And I have taken on a bunch of new clients and significantly more work, so I don't have very much play time anymore.  Hence the lack of posts.  I'll try and give you all a quick update.

The Boy is 6 1/2 and getting ready to start 1st grade on Monday (I really have no idea how the hell that happened).  He spent the summer at an awesome camp and had a fantastic time.  It wasn't associated with his school so he made a whole new group of friends.  Some of the friends were a bit older than him so he has learned some new things.  Some good, some not so good.  ("A guy at camp got kicked in the balls today--it was aswesome!")  He is growing up so fast and has definitely hit the "boy" part of his childhood.  He spent the summer playing Ninjago with a group of friends.  As usual, my boy becomes quite obsessed, and that has been his latest thing.  It still somewhat surprises me that besides being super little for his age, he is quite the popular little dude.  On his last day of camp he came home with 7 notes stuck in his backpack from other parents with their information because the kids wanted to get together after camp for a play date.  He is a social little dude and happy as can be.

We had a bit of a regression with our ongoing eating issues this summer.  Probably due to the fact that the camp I sent him to had food included so it was totally up to him to feed himself throughout the day.  This did not go so well.  For the first couple of weeks he told me that he ate a bowl of pasta during the day (decent as far as I am concerned), but by about the third week he decided that his food of the day was going to be a hot dog bun.  NO hot dog inside the bun, mind you.  Just the bun.  And for the rest of the summer that's basically all he put in his body all day long.  When I picked him up every day he would literally be weak from lack of food.  The kid just kills me with this issue.  And because of that he lost more weight.  While at the end of the school year I was thrilled to learn he had finally hit the 40 pound mark (yes, he's 6 1/2--I KNOW!!!), but we recently weighed him and he was back down to 37 pounds.  Sigh.  So I have put him back on his medicine (he couldn't take it during the summer because his camp couldn't give it to him during the day) to stimulate his appetite.  He is eating like a champ now, but I am still super stressed out about how little he is.  I know he will gain back some weight now that he's back on the medicine, but I feel a less than thrilled about that because I know once he stops the medication he will lose it again.  I could go on and on about this issue with him, but just know that it causes me GREAT stress.  But it doesn't seem to bother him in the slightest as he has no concept of the fact that he is little and he is the happiest little dude around, so I guess there's that...

Then there's The Girl.  I honestly don't really know how to update you all on her.  She's...hysterically funny, ridiculously smart and mature for her age (comparing where her brother was at her age...not sure if it's just a girl thing, or a second child thing), the life of the party, fun and happy...and also incredibly defiant and stubborn, indifferent to the concept of rules or anything I tell her, throws temper tantrums like no one has ever seen before and sometimes makes me question my ability to parent anyone.  That girl knows how to push my buttons more than anyone else.  She is challenging for sure, but she is also the sweetest and funniest little person I know.  My feelings for her are always very strong.  I am either so enamored with her cuteness and sweetness, or else I want to throw her out a window.  I am trying VERY HARD to set boundaries and be consistent with her, but it seems to be her goal in life to challenge me.  She is also in the super argumentative stage.  Example?  "Please come sit down for dinner..."  Her:  "No.  I want the green fork, not the pink one!"  "Just use what is in front of you...we don't make to order our silverware...!"  {obscene fit screaming ensues telling me she can't POSSIBLY eat with the pink fork....me finally choosing the "pick your battles" concept and giving her the green fork just so we can all possibly have a normal dinner...}  At which point she smiles over the green fork and then looks down at her plate...  "No Mommy, I didn't want fish for dinner I wanted chicken...!!!"  Someone just shoot me.  I try and let her make the majority of the decisions that are appropriate for a three year old to make to give her that power, but sometimes it just plain doesn't matter.  Everything becomes the wrong outfit, the wrong pair of shoes, the wrong toy, the wrong car seat, the wrong...EVERYTHING.  She exhausts me.  But I love that little girl with the fiery passion of a thousand suns.

She left her "daycare" and started in her brother's old preschool for summer school.  It took The Boy about three months to feel comfortable at this new school and to adjust...and The Girl?  It took her a day.  Seriously.  I had planned to stay with her until the bell rang, but after about 5 minutes of me there she looked at me and said, "Mommy?  Why you still here?  Go to work!"  And so I did.  And that was the extent of the transition.  I'm sure it helped that it was Brother's old school and therefore she was familiar with it.  But still...sometimes she just amazes me.

I will try and be better about updating the blog...but I make no promises!  :)  We just got home from a week at our family cabin before school starts.  And as I blog currently I am sitting in a house that has not been unpacked at all...there are 64 new emails (after I deleted all the ones I don't need to deal with) in my inbox that need to be read and dealt with, there are dishes in the sink AND the dishwasher...and I haven't showered.  So I guess it's back to real life...  Hope all is well with everyone!

The Long Weekend

Life goes on over here, and I am super lucky to have so many great friends and family around to keep us all busy.  Case in point, we had a fun-filled, but packed, long weekend.

Friday night we stayed home, just me and the kids.  The kids took long baths...we watched a movie and ate popcorn, and just rested after a long week.  It was really nice.  Then on Saturday one of my clients came by the house to pick some work up and spent a good amount of time with my kids.  They love this particular client so they were very excited to show them their bedrooms and backyard.

Then, The Ex told me she would take BOTH the kids on Saturday morning (for new-er readers, my Ex is the other mother to my son, but not my daughter so she has NO reason to take The Girl...she is just super nice and volunteered since The Girl was begging...).  So I had an unprecedented 4 hours of kid free time!  I took a long shower with my music up loud (no kids to have to keep an ear out for...) and then went grocery shopping.  By myself.  I know this might not mean a lot to my readers, but for me?  What a luxury!!

Then Saturday night I had a babysitter and I went to the 40th birthday party of my BFF's husband.  WITHOUT my children.  I would have had a great time no matter what, but after having a good portion of my day sans kids, this party was just the topping on the cake.  It is kinda weird sometimes showing up to a party full of couples by yourself, as the "single girl," but I did it for 5 years, so I have some practice.  I fortunately found a couple of other single girls to sit and play with during the evening so I wasn't that awkward third wheel.  They had great food, even better beer, and when I got home, both of my kids were fast asleep.  Win all around!

Sunday we got up and headed over to the beach.  I have a client with a beach house and I needed to stop by there and do a quick bit of work.  So we did that, and then headed to a yummy little taco place and had some lunch.  Then another friend of mine had rented a two bedroom Villa at a hotel right on the beach, so we headed over there for the rest of the day.  Our day was spent in the sand, playing in the water and soaking up the rays.  It felt really nice and the kids had a BLAST.  Then once it got a little too windy, we headed back to their villa and hung out there until after the kids had dinner.  We left at 10:00 in the morning and didn't get home until 8:00 at night so it was a full day.  But a fun one.  I live less than an hour away from the beach and I rarely take my kids over there.  Need to do that more!

When I left for the beach on Sunday the plan for Monday (Memorial Day) was to have my mom and step dad and my grandmother over for a little BBQ for lunch.  Nothing major, but just a relaxing day to enjoy.  I got a call from my mother at 8:15am on Monday and she said, "You better get up and start cleaning...you're having a party!"  It turns out that our little BBQ went from 4 adults and my two kids to...10 adults, 4 kids...and a dog.  My mother had spent all day Sunday inviting all sorts of people to the BBQ...  But you know what?  It was a beautiful day.  My 90 year old grandmother got to spend the day with 2 of her 3 children, 4 out of 5 of her grandchildren, and all 4 of her great-grandchildren.  We put up the bouncy house and the hammock in the backyard...had tons of yummy food and adult beverages, a kick-ass BBQ (if I do say so myself...I have become quite the proficient BBQer) and just a really, really nice day overall.  I am really lucky to have so much of my family so close that my kids are able to grow up with all of their extended family around.  It was a blessing that I had as a child, and I am so happy to be able to pass that along to my kids.

Overall, the weekend was crazy busy but wonderful.  I'm sure I have some pretty cute pictures on my camera from the day yesterday, but that's exactly where they sit:  in my camera.  :)  I will try and upload some pics later in the week.  Hope everyone had a happy and safe long holiday weekend!

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That last post is bumming me out and I don't want it to be at the top of my blog anymore.  So here are a couple of pictures of the kids to make you smile.  The girl last week, and The Boy at his Mother's Day Tea for both of his moms at his school.  Love these babies.  Aren't they getting big?