My Little Mynah Man

I've been counting while my two boys sleep.  I'm up over 200 and I know I'm forgetting some.  The list includes yellow and bulldozer and stinkbug and please.  Also walk and ride and astronaut and biplane.  Wine, milk, chocolate, and guitar.  My favorite right now may be "pilgrim" (pronounced "bum")
I'm not counting numbers, letters of the alphabet, or animal sounds.  Just words.  Words that Nate says reliably and frequently.

And yes, I'm bragging.  I'm amazed by my little boy who is expected to say 50ish words at this age but instead puts together 3-4 word sentences.  If you give him an opening he'll tell you the story of the two stinkbugs who were walking on his wall but daddy took them away in a tissue. To go pee pee in the potty.  Or he might tell you about airplanes and helicopters flying up, up, in the sky.  He may even tell you about rolling the yellow ball to Kent in gym class right before they crawled through a blue tunnel.

Of course, chances are also good that as an uninitiated person you may not understand a lot of it.  But if he told you "Nate please ice water, right now!" I think that one would come through loud and clear.  If he sees someone give you something or do something for you and you don't say thank you, he'll  say it over and over until you acknowledge him and thank the individual in question.

He uses a new word every day.  None of them, yet, things he has overheard that we would rather him not say.  All of them bringing joy into this house one precious syllable at a time.

Non-Dairy Rice Whip

I was driving home from the market tonight.  Nate was in the back seat and we were singing "Old MacDonald".  I realized that I had a totally goofy grin on my face.  We were having fun.  He was being charming and sweet.  We had even managed a trip to the market with no blood shed and no destruction of mommy nerves ( a true coup).
Most of the time, that's how I feel around my little boy.  Happy, grateful to have him, thankful for his easy going, sweet, funny, creative personality.  He uses a new word every day and explores the world with such wonder, and a total disregard for personal safety. (He took a "big step" off the couch today and after the tears dried we agreed he should hold mommy's hand for all future big steps.)

The other part of parenting this little boy is a constant grinding anxiety.  I don't pretend that my worry is bigger than any other parent's but his eating and growing or lack there of is a source of constant trouble in this house.  We were jubilant when he was eating and gaining weight after we got the allergy issue ironed out.  Almost 2 months ago, at his last GI visit we agreed he was doing so well we should wean him off his meds.  Gladly, we did.  Slowly, his eating has decreased, his weight gain has slowed, and lately he has been telling us about "yellow spills" (his word for throw-up) in his mouth.  It's hard to know when a toddler is being a toddler and when he is actually sick.  We have dismissed intermittent periods of poor eating as "being alomost 2" and we were probably right.  But now, with the exception of two good meals, he has eaten next to nothing in over a week and hasn't gained any weight in more than 2 weeks.  He's back off the growth curve for weight, and that's my flashing red neon anxiety sign.  I know I'm not raising the Jolly Green Giant.  I know we're not big people and he'll likely always be on the smaller side of the curve, but he ought to be on it somewhere.  He ought to grow.  So tomorrow we will call the doctor and ask her if she agrees that we should restart some antacids.  Does she also think we should restart the pro-motility drug?

Tonight, because he did actually eat a decent dinner, and because we are always looking for an excuse to sneak in calories, we did this:

Giving Thanks

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.
My mom had 3 siblings, and when I was little Thanksgiving was "our" holiday, the one everyone came to us for.  Back then I liked the smells, the home made candy, the house full of cousins, and the shenanigans at the kids table.
Since coming to Pittsburgh I have adopted Thanksgiving for my own.  I love to cook and I love to eat the things I cook.  Thanksgiving is a gluttony of both.  Since being together, Dave and I have usually been joined by family and always by some friends.  Being cozied up in the warm house when it is cold outside adds another dimension to the celebration.
I remember the year when Dave's friend Chuck was here and it was too cold to do anything but lay around in our pajamas and drink champagne and watch TV documentaries the whole weekend.
There was the year my dad and Nancy came to visit and we played Dance Dance Revolution so aggressively and with such focus that we almost burned the turkey.
And of course Dave proposed to me on Thanksgiving.  To this day I am surprised I didn't vomit my meal all over him.
We have traditions.  Mimosas and bagels while I cook in the morning.  Pumpkin pie from a real pumpkin.  Chinese 5 spice turkey.  Mashed potatoes with enough dairy products to justify my own cow for the holiday.
This year things are going to be a little different.
This year Nate is old enough to eat with us.
This year the table will be dairy and egg free.

I have been struggling with the temptation to make "mommy food" and "nate food", a concept which he is already familiar with.  This weekend, however, Dave and I had a rude surprise.  Putting lotion on Nathan with a hand that had held a hard boiled egg resulted in a whole body rash.  Thankfully vomiting did not ensue.  It did clear up this mystery from earlier in the week:   We ate eggs.  Nathan did not.  Nathan got a rash, got hoarse, vomited.  None of us slept.  In retrospect, I am sure I touched his food with some invisible trace of incredible inedible egg on my fingers.
It's made me think about what is valuable about Thanksgiving.  And the answer is "time with the ones I love".  There will be only Nate food with the candles on the table.  He'll "cheers" with sparkling cider like I did when I was little.  Dave and I will be able to relax and forget about partitioning food.
The recipes will be new, and except for the turkey, vegan.
The house will be warm.  The friends will be good.
I will be deeply thankful, as always, for my boys.

A Boy's Best Friend

If you know us, you probably know that Dave and I are allergic to pretty much all animals.  You may know that sitting in a car with someone who has a dog makes me wheeze.  You have probably heard the story about Nathan and the poodle and may have even seen the picture of his eyes swollen shut from hypoallergenic dog slobber.
You may then have wondered if this boy was ever going to have a pet.
You need not have worried.

Nathan has adopted a creature.

Can you see the little guy on the inside of the bottle?
He's a stinkbug "Ti-buh" and he eats, as Nate told us anyway, "tasty green".  That's spinach, in case it wasn't clear. 
He's lived with us for a week now and Nate eats breakfast with him and kisses the bottle good-bye when he leaves for school.  Yesterday we found him a friend on the widow sill and now the two of them are wandering their bottle together.
Not sure how long they'll be around, but Google says they can live up to five years, so if they really live on "tasty green" they could be eating breakfast with us for quite a while.

Hunger

I read the "Little House on the Prairie" series when I was in first grade.  I've reread it many times since and one or two things hover in my mind.
In "The Long Winter" Laura goes to a party where she receives an orange as a party favor.  "Imagine," she thinks in awe, "having an entire orange all to yourself."
I found myself thinking about this the other day when the "kids meal" came and included an obscenely large hot dog and more fries than Dave and I could eat together.  It cost nine dollars and we threw almost all of it away.

We think about food a lot in our house.  Nathan has had so many problems with food and weight gain that we know the calories and nutritional breakdown of a stunning number of foods.  Traveling, even going out to eat, brings up the "what-will-we-feed-him?" anxiety.  Dave's dad's recent brush with the reality of heart disease has thrown our eating habits into sharp relief.  Dave and I have both eaten too much crap and exercised too little since our little man came along.  We worry about eating out and finishing leftovers before they go bad.  Everyone has breakfast even if it makes us a little late for work.  I worry about waste - food bought and uneaten because Nathan didn't like it or we worked late too many nights in a row to cook it all.

All small worries compared to that shared by 1 in 5 American children.

Twenty Percent of American children live in homes where, at least once a week, they run out of food and don't have money to buy more.

Twenty Percent.

That means that in a class of 30 children 6 of them may not have had breakfast and may not be expecting to have dinner.  Six children whose grumbling stomachs will distract them from learning to read and write.  Six who may bully someone else out of their lunch or pick a fight or ditch a class or talk back to a teacher because they just feel so bad.
Some of these children don't have food because their parents have spent the money on cigarettes, alcohol, or drugs, but some of these children don't have food because a parent has lost a job and the cost of keeping a roof over their heads and the heat on is much more than their current income.

Feeding our children is possibly the most basic role of parenthood.  God gave women's bodies the ability to nourish the next generation.  It is believed that one of the many causes of the obesity epidemic in America's children is that parents don't like to tell their children "no" when they ask for food.  The reality in our country, however, is that 20% of our children are mildly malnourished because of the unreliability of their food source.

I don't pretend to know what the answer is.  Nutritious school lunches can help the children.  A declining unemployment rate would help whole families.  A single parent household has twice the likelihood of going hungry so decreasing that prevalence would make a real impact.

I also don't have an agenda.  I just think it is horrifying that this country, that overeats and throws food away and spends so much of our GNP trying to solve the problems of others, can't feed our children.  I think a lot of people don't realize how high the numbers are.
If you want to read more check out the Food Research and Action Center.
And please, think about donating some healthy food to your local food bank.  It is the only safety net that many families have.

Bothersome

One of the unfortunate facts about the hospital I work at is that it abuts a very old cemetery.  Through very careful forethought and planning there are no patient rooms that have a view of gravestones.  It is visible, through the trees, from the library.  The PICU family grief room originally had a clear view of marble mausoleums until they installed some stained glass to blur the harsh reality.  Otherwise, it is the physician offices and work-rooms that have the gorgeous views of ancient trees marching through the seasons. 

I don't mean to imply that we should hide the concept or possibility of death.  Our bodies all die eventually.  I just think that there is something unsettling about struggling with the illness or injury of a loved one and, needing a glimpse of the outside world, looking out a window to see a funeral procession.

In the oncology world we wrestle every day with life and death discussions, how to talk to children and their parents.  Some people want cold hard facts with no sugar coating.  Some want vague generalizations.  We're honest with all of them though the language changes.  We work hard to make our clinic a space of hope and to give all the happiness we can to families who spend many of their days worrying about what the last day will be like.  Kids run around the halls chasing a favorite doctor or nurse.  They do crafts while they wait.  The teens hang out playing pool or Guitar Hero.  Santa always comes.  Hope, as it has been said, springs eternal.

We do what we do for the kids.  That includes decorating for every holiday including Halloween.

But we also do it for the parents, and I wonder if any of them find this bothersome as they check in for a blood count and chemotherapy.

While I was gone

How to explain a monthlong abscence from the blog world . . .

Model airplane show with daddy

Playing piano at Rosh Hashana services

Learning to drive

Making, and eating, and enjoying vegan cookies

 Enjoying one of the last days of summer in a fountain in the Baltimore harbor

Hanging out with med school folks at a good friend's wedding


I'll try not to go away for so long again.