Times Two

Nathan is 2.  Really, really 2.  Frustratingly, charmingly, limit testingly 2.  "What's that?, Right Now, and no" are his favorite words.  Dave and I deal with it the best way we can.  Team work, sharing the exhaustion, and the well placed time-out.  Luckily he makes up for all of it with his charming smile and his hilarious statements.

Yesterday, when Dave picked him up from day care, his teacher lamented that he had not been very obedient all day.  When asked to do or to stop doing something he said "No" and occasionally required physical relocation to get him to pay attention to what he was supposed to be doing.
Dave asked the (to me) obvious question "What did you do?  Did you put him in time out?"
"No," was the answer "we aren't allowed to do that.  We just redirect them."
Soooooo, you have a 2 year old being willfully disobedient and disrespectful and you plop them down in their favorite couch with their favorite book to "redirect" them?  That sounds suspiciously like rewarding bad behavior.
Am I crazy?
Maybe.
I'll admit that I am terribly naive.  I never asked about discipline.  He was 5 months old when he started day care.  I was worried about what they would do with the two swallows of breast milk he left behind in a bottle, not what they would do when he started chucking Legos at other kids.  I mean, I knew they wouldn't beat him.  I just sort of assumed there'd be some form of age appropriate consequence.  Time out, brief loss of a favorite privilege, unplanned toenail trimming.  Something to make it clear he'd crossed the line and it was not OK.
But no.  It seems they are not allowed to do that unless parents specifically OK it.  And I guess you have to independently volunteer your approval because I certainly never got any sort of time out permission form.  I would have signed that in a heart beat.
It seems, after an informal survey of the folks I know with kids, this lack of consequence is the norm for day care.
It really, really bothers me that this is the policy.
More, it bothers me the response I got from another mom.  "Well of course" she said, as if I was some sort of nut case "I don't want someone else disciplining my kid."

I don't think it is the day care's responsibility to teach my baby right from wrong.  Our job as parents is to teach them values and to flog them with wet newspaper until they internalize the rules.  I know that.  I spent a lot of time and energy and waistline in search of the privilege of doing just that.  But the unavoidable fact is that my child, and all the others in his class, spend more time with the day care providers than with us, the parents.  They spend all day with this peer group, these adults, and it does seem reasonable to expect or to at least empower them to set limits and dole out consequences.  It's not a wolf pack.  It's supposedly an environment where children are learning social skills.

The developmental job of a 2 year old is to test limits.  He's learning the rules of the world.  Someone has to teach him those rules.  The worst thing that can happen is for him to grow up thinking the rules don't apply to him (sociopath) or only apply in certain situations when certain people are looking.  No wonder bullying is becoming such a problem in our schools.  Children are coming to schools from day care where when they knocked a kid over to take their cookie the teacher pulled them aside and made them play on the computer to stop them from being mean.

Whirlwind Weekend

We had a busy weekend.
On Friday, Nathan saw the tooth doctor, an experience he did NOT enjoy.  He does enjoy talking about how sad it made him.
On Saturday he had a haircut.  Not a big hit either but at least, as he will tell you, there was no "yellow spill" at the haircut, only at the tooth doctor.
While out and about, we stumbled upon the protests for the public transit cuts and Nate got to see police cars with their lights on.  That was a real winner.  He noted that they also have computers inside.  He says the policemen like to do A-astronaut (what he calls Starfall.com) and to watch Ming Ming (the Wonder Pets).
We went to the park for the first time this spring.  Slide yes.  Swing definitely no.  Chasing puppy dogs - two thumbs way, way up.
On Saturday night, Dave and I went out and Nate stayed home with his friend Saleemah (who bravely opened and ingested the Devil-faced novelty hot sauce from the back of our cupboard and apparently almost died).
On Sunday we had an adventure to IKEA and to the biggest supermarket I have ever been in.  Later we walked into Squirrel Hill for first-day-of-spring Rita's ice.  The people watching was priceless and the ice was free.  Nate had to wear a sweater and a ski cap to eat it, but that did not deter him from eating his AND mommy's AND daddy's.

Note two-handed eating and spoon blur.

I needed to go back to work to get a rest. 

My Miraculous Husband

Some of you may have seen my Facebook Post that my application to apply has been accepted.
I am applying for a research grant from the St. Baldrick's Foundation. 

Let me tell you a little about St. Baldrick's:

It is completely volunteer run.

100% of the money they raise goes to pediatric cancer research.

The research they fund is judged to be clearly heading toward new cancer therapy to save lives.

Their fundraising tactic is to get people to shave their heads to garner recognition of pediatric cancer as a problem, and to fundraise along the way.

Dave, in a phenomenal show of support for me and for kids with cancer and for Children's Hospital, signed up to be a shavee.  He raised money and then, on March 12, my husband became a cue ball.

As Nate observes "Daddy have no hair."

I think he looks like a hero.

Technical Data

Simply put: a baby's growth is supposed to follow a curve.  That's why they call it a growth curve.
This is Nate's.  He did OK until he was 9 months old and then he "fell off" in medical lingo.
Now, at 2 years old, he is firmly back on.  He's 5th percentile for weight (above) and height (not shown but equally impressive).
23 pounds 12 ounces.  32 1/2 inches. Head - large and full of brains.

******

He has been on the budesonide-Splenda slurry (his "sweet medicine") for about 2 1/2 weeks now and the change is marked.  I think he must have actually been uncomfortable a lot of the time.  Because suddenly, it's like having Nate in high-def with Dolby digital surround sound.

When we bring him home from school at night he doesn't want to whimper and cling to me.  He wants to run around, giggle, make up games, and do a truly hysterical penguin impression.  I think it's been 2 days since he burped and told me he had a "yellow spill" in his mouth.  We have had a few very fun family evenings just playing.  It's nice.  It's nice to have a baby who is well.

Progress Report

Still running.  Slowly creeping up toward a 5K but definitely making progress.  It seems the longer I spend jogging as opposed to just walking, the less my lungs like it.  But I suppose that's why albuterol was invented.  Besides the wheezing and the unfortunate tendency of y headphones to shock me in both ears simultaneously, things are going great!

More words of wisdom

We had a big snowstorm on President's day.  Nate and Dave made a snowman and rode the sled around the backyard.  By the weekend the snow was gone. 

Nate was very upset by the fate of his snowman.

"Melted" he lamented in the backseat of the car. "Yun melted snowman. Need more snow.  Make new one snowman"

"Where," I asked him, "do you think we will get more snow?"

He pondered this questions for a minute, brow furrowed.

"Nate ask snowman! Snowman get more snow!"

So far we haven't seen a snowman to ask, but Nate does keep his eyes open for one.

Good-bye SSRI

I am weaning off my Celexa.
I started it almost exactly a year ago during the darkest part of my life to date.  It's the time when I was so overwhelmed and tired and angry and sad and defeated that I once wore a surgical mask for an entire today because I literally couldn't stop crying whether working at the computer or examining patients, and I wanted people to think I had a cold.  It's the time when there are no blog posts, almost no pictures of my boy.  It's the time when I tried to quit my fellowship.  It's the time when Dave was a fabulous single parent and husband who kept us all going.
It's a time that came to a head at the beginning of a busy clinic when I was literally locked in a bathroom by my crushing overwhelming emotions, crying so hard I started to throw up, and once that started, I gave up entirely.  In front of a crowded nursing station I wailed my intention to go home and likely never come back and I left.  Dave had to come drive me home.  I left my patients behind, completely unconcerned about what might happen to them.
I started Celexa the next day.
I made it through the remainder of the year without any more huge breakdowns, though it was a while before I felt like I could take a deep breath, and even longer before an accumulation of small stresses didn't make me hyperventilate and tear up.

Maybe if I hadn't been a first year fellow AND a new mommy.  Maybe if my baby hadn't been sick so much.  Maybe if milk supply hadn't been such a source of angst and used up so much time.  Maybe if I hadn't missed him being sick for so long before we realized.  Maybe if the winter hadn't been one of the worst on record.  Maybe if I hadn't smashed my car into a snow bank.  Maybe if my clinic preceptor had actually offered help, or at least agreed to help when asked.  Maybe if two of my favorite patients hadn't relapsed in the same week.  Maybe, maybe, maybe.  Maybe it wouldn't have gotten to that point.

All that aside, I am now stopping the meds and I am just amazed by how much it has obviously changed my brain chemistry.  I am currently taking half a dose every other day.  Every time I have decreased it, I have been really uncomfortable for a while before I get adjusted again.  My last dose was almost 48 hours ago.  I feel shaky and disconnected.  My legs and arms feel weak and I have trouble focusing.  I am having a little trouble finishing sentences.  I have a huge hole in my planning and executive function.  I am not comfortable doing the things I am supposed to be doing in the lab so I sat down to work on the grant application I am writing. No dice.  I think I might throw the towel in and go home.
Driving very slowly, of course.