Gastroenterologist visit Apr 2008:

Gastroenterologist visit April 2008: I took Chloe to her GE today to talk about Chloe’s frequent complaints of heartburn and other tummy pain. We’d talked to the GE in December about similar complaints and I felt like I wasn’t being heard, so I’d decided to find a new pediatric gastroenterologist. There really aren’t that many of them out there, and some don’t participate in our insurance plan and the one that was in plan couldn’t accommodate us in her schedule, so I decided that going back to the original GE was better than nothing. We got an earlier appointment by being seen in Georgetown than we would have in Annapolis, so we spent the day schlepping. This time the doctor was quite receptive and concerned. Chloe is exactly the same weight she was on Dec 10 (to the 10th of a kg). The doctor explained that there is a surgery that can correct Chloe’s problem but advised that only as a last resort such as if Chloe continues to not gain weight, or if a subsequent endoscopy shows esophageal damage (Chloe’s scope over a year ago showed no damage). Our plan of action is to double Chloe’s Prevacid dose (she’ll now take as much as I do), get her allergy tested, put a wedge under her sheet to keep her head and esophagus elevated during sleep, and to do fairly frequent endoscopies to monitor her esophagus. I’m on board with most of the plan although I’m reluctant about the allergy testing since Chloe’s biopsies tested negative for allergy-related complications. I’m not overly worried about the lack of weight gain since Chloe looks to be a healthy weight, she’s got round cheeks, she’s active, and it has been less than 5 months since she was last weighed. Really I’m not overly worried about Chloe’s prognosis at all, but I’m not an expert so I prefer to take the kids to the experts at the first sign of trouble so we can be sure we’ve done everything we can to keep the kids healthy.

week ending april 27, 2008:

Week ending April 27, 2008: We’ve been enjoying the fine weather this week. Our cherry tree bloomed so I had to take the annual picture of the kids with the tree. While out there Walt Disney (the cat) came to join us. The blossoms on the tree don’t last very long and there are thousands of them so I don’t object when the kids want to pick some. What fun are flowers to just look at when you can pretend that they are wedding bouquets or any number of things? After a while the kids decided to decorate the cat and he sat regally while they adorned him with pink flowers. Casey’s been getting his exercise this week splitting the wood from the tree that we got from Uncle Brian. The kids were fascinated to watch him. He wanted them to stay a safe distance away so he assigned a spot that he deemed “far enough” and they sat there while he’d split a few pieces. Then when Casey would take a break they’d run over and gather up the little kindling-sized pieces as though they were some sort of treasure. The kids also wanted to try swinging the 13lb maul themselves and even with two of them in tandem they could barely lift it. While the kids watched their Dad, Walt Disney watched the kids. He’s really become a family cat. He sits under the trampoline and watches the kids bounce, and one time he jumped up on the springs and let himself in the trampoline (there is a zippered enclosure, but it was open because the kids were just climbing on themselves). Fortunately I was there to stop the kids from bouncing long enough for me to shoo the cat off. I imagine that a bounced cat would not be kind. We also gave my car one of its twice-annual baths. I probably wouldn’t wash it at all except that the kids so enjoy it.

Riding Thomas the Tank Engine

Riding Thomas the Tank Engine: This week we went to the B&O Railroad Museum for a Day Out with Thomas. Thomas the Tank engine is full-sized and really rides the rails. The kids didn’t notice the diesel engine on the other end of the train that was doing the real work, but all the better for the magic of the day, and to them it was a magical day! Included in the price of admission were several festival-type activities like a moon bounce, face painting, a mini-train ride, temporary tattoos and a clown who tied balloons into a butterfly for Chloe and a sword for Alex. Chloe threw up the night before so I didn’t know if she was even going to make it to the event, but she kept her breakfast and lunch down and seemed to have plenty of energy, so I couldn’t see making her stay home. At home, when Chloe and Alex debate which movie to watch, Chloe doesn’t often agree to watch Thomas the Tank Engine movies, so weeks before the event we’d considered only getting tickets for Alex and Daddy, but Chloe said she wanted to go. I figured it was just because she couldn’t stand the idea of Alex getting something that she didn’t, but she got really into the event. As we were waiting in line for our scheduled train ride Alex said “I LOVE riding Thomas the Tank Engine!” While on the train the conductor walked down the aisle in a formal conductor outfit and greeted each child and game them an “Junior Engineer” certificate. When the train reached the point where it stopped to back up back to the station, the theme song from the Thomas the Tank Engine show began playing over the loud speaker. At that point Chloe threw herself at her father in an ecstatic hug, and Alex too looked like he would burst from joy. They really believed that they were experiencing something they’d only imagined as they watched the shows. I think with our looming Disney vacation we are in for some trouble determining what is real and what is make-believe. In the movie called Toy Story the other toys inform Buzz Lightyear that he is only a toy and not a real super-hero, so Chloe’s been telling Alex that Buzz Lightyear isn’t real, but then she insists that the Disney princesses (Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, etc) are real because she got to meet them last year. They both understand that Winnie the Pooh and other animals at the park are just people wearing costumes, but they are hoping that their favorite characters are real. I’m hoping they’ll sort it out themselves because I cringe when I have to tell fibs to preserve the fantasy, but at the same time they do so enjoy the magic. Here are the pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/constance.phelps/ThomasTheTankEnine2008

week ending april 20, 2008

Week ending April 20, 2008: This was a busy week! On Monday we went to the Maryland Zoo with a whole bunch of relatives including my cousins Virginia and Samantha from North Carolina whom we haven’t seen in 2 years. The kids must’ve walked miles without complaint and really enjoyed the day playing with my cousins and seeing the animals. I couldn’t have asked for a better day. Here are the pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/constance.phelps/Baltzoo2008 On Wednesday at physical therapy the therapist said that Chloe has made enormous progress and will probably be able to stop coming to therapy soon. In the last 6 weeks she’s relearned how to walk and now walks heel-then-toe most of the time. On Friday we went to our friend Angie’s birthday party. Chloe surprised me by acting worried when I said that Angie was inviting her friends from school whom Alex and Chloe have not met before. Chloe said “there are going to be STRANGERS there?”. This is the same child who makes new friends every time we go to the play ground or the play area at the mall. It was funny at the party how the boys and girls split up. There was one boy Alex’s age and Alex warmed up to him pretty quickly, and Chloe joined in with the other little girls although she kept checking in with Angie for reassurance. Here are the pictures from Angie’s party, although Alex and Chloe aren’t in many of the pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/constance.phelps/AngieSBday2008 On Saturday we went for our first boat ride of the year, this time on Grammy Barb’s boat. It was the opening day of rockfish season, so we spent a little while trolling for rockfish. Alex was so adorable sitting with his hand on a rod waiting for a fish to bite (when trolling several lines are in the water at one time and the rods go in rod holders so it isn’t necessary to hold the rod, but Alex was so excited about the chance of catching a fish, he couldn’t keep his hands off the rods). Unfortunately we didn’t catch anything. He seemed to do a little better with the boat ride itself. At the beginning of last year he’d get frazzled and frantically ask us to slow the boat down. This time he seemed to enjoy going fast for a while, and toward the end of the trip as he was getting over stimulated, he went into the cabin (out of the wind) and sat uncomplaining with his hands over his ears. He didn’t even ask for anyone to hold him, but when I pulled him onto my lap he leaned against me quietly. I’m quite proud of him for how he’s learned to adapt to all the sensations on the boat. Here’s the boat ride pics: http://picasaweb.google.com/constance.phelps/FirstBoatTripOfTheSeason2008

week ending apr 13, 2008:

Week ending April 13, 2008: This week we took the kids to the circus. They’d never been, Casey couldn’t remember going, and I hadn’t been since I was about 10 years old. The kids enjoyed themselves, but given how expensive it was (made Disney World look like a bargain!) we won’t be making this a yearly adventure. Alex’s favorite part was when the people were shot out of the cannon, and Chloe says that she liked all the parts, but afterward she kept asking questions about how to become an acrobat (but she kept forgetting the word and saying that she wants to be an “actress”). Here are the pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/constance.phelps/Circus2008 and some very short videos: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8397594930080219358 (start of circus)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4266210294081595984 (acrobats doing flips)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2457092734240803466 (elephants doing tricks) and http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7064086281281630390&hl=en (cannon).

My social experiment continues this week. Step one is to compliment the kids on good behavior. Step two is to execute proper timeouts (as defined in the book, very similar to the way we actually do timeouts) for violent or dangerous behavior. Step three is to pull the child aside and vividly recount a good-behavior event, and then reward the child with at least 10 minutes of special time with the parent (without telling the child that the special time is a reward). Step one was harder than I thought. What I’d really like each kid to do is to stop being a pain in the ass, but “thank you for not being a pain in the ass” isn’t a compliment at all (because it implies that the person is usually a pain in the ass), so I had to do some work to define what behaviors I was interested in correcting, and I had to watch closely to find behavior that was worth complimenting. I’d really like Chloe to stop hurting her brother, and I’d like her to cooperate with me without a 5 minute argument before following simple instructions. The author stresses that as children gain empathy they realize how their behavior affects others and start behaving better, so I watched for empathetic or selfless behavior. 4 year olds are still pretty self-centered, so examples of empathy weren’t easy to find. I did manage to compliment Chloe several times throughout the week for being “helpful”, and she picked up on the trend. When she’d get in the car and climb into her car seat instead of climbing around the car, she’d say “am I being helpful, Mommy?” And when she offered to help me scrub the potatoes we were going to eat for dinner, she noticed that it was hard work and asked me if I liked having help. Grammy Barb noticed that when Jenny shared some gumballs with Chloe, Chloe asked Jenny to save the blue ones for her brother because that’s his favorite color. I guess we’re making small strides in the right direction which is what I was hoping for.

week ending apr 6, 2008:

We went to see Daddy's office, and to see the Cherry Blossoms in DC this week.

I’m trying a social experiment. I was looking for a travel guide in the library when a book called “From Difficult to Delightful in 30 days. Improving the Behavior of your Spirited Child” practically jumped off the shelf at me. I’ve been complaining a lot lately about Chloe’s “fluid” interpretation of the rules and about her hitting, poking, scratching and otherwise torturing her brother, so I figured I’d give it a read even though I wouldn’t classify Chloe as “difficult”. I’m very skeptical and find that 2 books on the same subject usually directly contradict each other, but on the other hand, it never hurts to get some ideas. The first 4 chapters were the authors vehement rantings against Ritalin (which I’m not even considering), and against Freudian child psychology which he claims tells parents to give children more love and attention when children are misbehaving (the author claims doing so provides positive reinforcement for negative behavior). I was about to give up on the book when the author finally said that the first step in achieving good behavior is to make a list of your child’s good behavior and to compliment the child on said behavior. Well, that just makes sense, and perhaps I’ve slipped in my duties as parental cheerleader lately. I was relieved that the first step wasn’t more rules, more time outs, or more punishments, all of which is exactly what is not working for us right now, so I was willing to give it a shot. I noticed right away that Chloe really beams when given a compliment, and after a few days she seemed generally less resentful.

We bought a new chainsaw this week and Alex was enthralled. We went to Uncle Brian’s house to pick up some firewood and Uncle Brian has cable TV (we don’t) and Sponge Bob was on (which they aren’t usually allowed to watch), so I told the kids they could watch TV while Casey and I loaded wood. Chloe was very excited about watching, but Alex wanted to help with the wood. He and his Daddy sat on some logs and ate their lunch in the sunshine and then Alex stood close by to watch as Casey opened the chainsaw case, and added oil and gas. Then Alex sat on the steps with his hands over his ears watching intently as Casey struggled to get the saw to start for the first time. It took several minutes to saw through the base of the tree which was cylinder over a foot high and over 2 feet in diameter and Alex watched the whole time, grinning and cheering when Daddy finished the job. After that we rolled or carried the remaining logs into a neat pile and Alex helped with the big ones that had to be rolled. Alex really looks up to his dad and loves to do the things that Daddy does. He must in order to give up Sponge Bob in order to help move firewood!