Bully Alert Aisle 16!

Our homeschooling experience has been a mixed bag. Overall I am loving it and have learned and grown a lot myself. The other day, we completed a section of her technology class that looked at the reality of bullying in some of its online forms. Having been a human development major, I knew a lot about the newer ideas of emotional bullying that is often far more damaging than even being physically bullied (especially since a black eye is far easier to explain the hurt than a dirty look or lack of communication).

After we finished the lessons for the day, I promised the kids a trip to the number one children's museum in america (at least so says the ads about it). We all needed tennis shoes to participate in the athletic area of the museum. So, off to target we went to find cheap tennis shoes. Just in luck, we found some $12 wonders that fit the bill and the kids earned themselves the free cookie at the bakery for making the shoe experience not a headache. The two youngest (that walk) were reliving the exciting new exercise we learned about in PE with their own rendition of ladders. Their unique twist was adding a squeal and using my moving stroller and the dairy case as the borders of the ladders.

Their first leg almost knocked over an elderly gentleman who happened to walk by at the wrong time. He was on his phone and seemed more focused on his grocery task and phone conversation to pay the kids much attention. Unfortunately, the older woman in the yogurt section wasn't so focused and glared at my children. My first instinct was to scold the children and apologize until I remembered the words I told my kids just a few minutes before in the Bully lesson. I told them in essence that allowing a bully to treat you poorly without pointing out their rudeness isn't being kind to you or the bully. You should always stand up for yourself. Now, I don't think I need to stand up for my kids' screaming or playground behavior in a grocery store, but I don't think it is appropriate to use your adult stature to intimidate 3 and 5 year olds.

From another, more bold, part of myself, asked "Are you bothered with my kids?" To be fair, her look was in between bothered and enamored/nostalgic. No verbal reply was made, but the eye roll and the cold shoulder was a point well made. Again, I asked, "Are my kids bothering you?" This got me a fire breathing glare and finally "This isn't a playground lady". I responded in a cool and collected way, "I never said it was." She then stated "Well, I did!" I finally add, "I wished you could have told me that you were bothered so I could have apologized to you. That's all." She ended the conversation. I walked off with a feeling of satisfaction for some strange reason, but then, in the privacy of an empty aisle, quickly reminded the kids that playgrounds and grocery stores are two different places and we need to act certain ways in each place.

Then, from out of nowhere, the first elderly man approached me. He adamantly apologize "on behalf of all elderly people" that "we aren't all like that" and that "she gives elderly people a bad name." He tried to convince me that "something obviously went wrong with her in her life" and that my kids "didn't need to be apologized for." I explained that I felt bad that my kids bothered her and that even if she didn't handle herself well, doesn't mean that I am any less responsible to be polite. I just want to have my kids see that standing up and being polite can coexist.

Homeschooling

We have embarked on something unfathomable to myself, but hopefully remarkable in results. We are homeschooling. I feel a little out of the norm with both pro-school and the pro-homeschool groups. Needless to say, after much deliberation and agonizing the effects of this decision, we are taking the year away from the brick and mortar school house to travel around hooked into online school via Connections Academy. Who knows, if we can figure out how to make it work, we can become well rounded scholars and produce such greatness as seen below ;).




(funny sidenote: the first day was met with shock and horror when the kids realized that homeschool didn't mean playing all the time. In fact, several requests to return to normal school were made by my kinder/first grader after he had to sit in a chair for more than 5 minutes without games or food or book of choice in front of him. Little does he know that our day of sitting dwarfs in comparison to normal classrooms. Oh well, he'll find out next year)

Because Who Doesn't Love the ER

Busy boys means many opportunities for injuries. My busy boy has been stitched (by his father) a few times for jumping wildly around the room, lost layers of skin via gnarly bike/razor accidents, and has had bruises aplenty from his very active life style. SInce he could walk, I was convinced a broken bone was in our future.

So the other day, when he tripped over a box in the kitchen while pretending to be a launching rocket (just to go wash his hands in the bathroom), thought I might have seen a prophecy fulfilled. I continued to worry about his foot especially when he woke up in pain in the middle of the night and wouldn't put pressure on it. I had hoped to just see a physician or just get a quick x-ray to confirm breakage, but I guess the rule is "if you think it's broken, go to the ER".

The four kids and I geared up for what I was sure to be a day long adventure in the ER. (mainly because there was no real emergency like large sharp objects protruding from him or dangerously high fever so our triage would be low) With camel bak loaded with snacks, lunch, books, and of course water, we braved the ER as best we could.

Thank heavens for the interesting factor ER's have and that the bed could fit the three mobile kids. I am sure they loved all the mixed emotions coming from behind our curtains since the bed sharing switched rapidly from fun to frustrating and back again.




In the end, his foot wasn't broken which I still am a bit skeptical about and he had the chance to get a pseudo cast. Avoiding a broken bone for now only makes me more anxious for the future. May be it has something to do with the tight rope he jimmy rigged on our wooden play structure that he climbs to get on top of the roof of the play fort!

Gas?

So I confess, it bugs me when people excuse childrens' smiles as being nothing but gas. Last time I had gas, smiling wasn't my natural response. I think of all the times I catch myself grinning, and realize I didn't have to cognitively decide to smile, it just came. I am 100% positive that children have lots of things to smile about (just as many as they cry about) and it comes out without trying.

Remember This

One Month Strong

One month and this 11 pounder has been around the block or at least around the hospital. A mere few days after his 2 week well-baby which he passed with flying colors and given the stamp of health, Joaquin's body seemed to have contracted something it didn't like. He had a high fever, but we thought nothing of it (well, didn't want to think anything of it). Finally after a few days of this and a few tylenol doses, we couldn't ignore it any more. So on Friday at 4 in the morning we packed our new born back to the hospital for the inevitable---pokes, catheters, and the dreaded lumbar puncture.
(taken after all the tests---we aren't binkie parents but with all that he had to go through, he deserved that binkie)* All of the above and more started the long process of diagnosis:

UTI and more scary-urosepsis

So how did this happen. Well, after many hours of speculations, we were told our stay would be 48 hours just to make sure the lumbar test came back without the dreaded spinal meningitis. Everyone was positive that it would come back clean and clear. Thank heavens that came true. And, then as the tests rolled in, the doctors who visited our room seemed more serious and tacked on more time for our stay. More tests were ordered and x-rays and consultations with everyone from urology to infectious disease.
(urology needed to look at a radiology VCUG test that put a catheter up you know where. Let's just say it was a common response for sometime after to cry whenever he was laid on his back and diaper was touched.)

To get all these labs and to administer the various antibiotics to destroy the urosepsis and UTI in his body, Joaquin looked like a bruised pin cushion. In all fairness, infant's veins are impossibly small and wiggly. Still, it was all I could do not to suplex the various technicians pushing, rubbing, alcohol pad scraping my poor little guy's skin. He was a trooper.


Sadly, we finally blew the last of his 4 IV's for the antibiotics.
The last one only worked for less than a day. And as a testament to how celestially choreographed** our whole hospital experienced turned out to be, the nurse who was watching over night kept eyeing the IV site wanting to avoid any possible problems like the IV popping out of the vein and having the saline drip flow into his tissues around the site. No other nurse even checked once. They would flush the IV and hook up the antibiotics. This nurse neurotically examined it each time she came in. Thank heavens. Her fear of it slipping came true and we caught it in enough time to only produce minimal and non-lasting damage:


(that picture was taken hours after it had time to drain. . .it was really painful looking)

Final Discovery (we hope);

Urachal cyst--a left over remnant of his umbilical connection from his belly button to his bladder that didn't close off correctly leaving a pocket ready to collect goo. This goo caused the UTI or the urosepsis (chicken or the egg here).

Solution: daily dose of antibiotics until surgury in 6 months to remove the mass. How I wish we could do it sooner because I feel like I might miss an important sign that Joaquin will have a recurrence of urosepsis and it won't be caught in time. The beautiful thing about infants is that they can handle a lot, but they don't look sick. By the time they look sick, it is almost too late. The danger of the anesthetic at such a young age though is failure to continue to breathe. So thank goodness we are down one month and have only five to go.

*Binkies use is a personal decision. I think every family has a right to binkie or not. Our binkie decision is based on the battles we want to not have down the road. The other exception to the binkie for us is when the child appears to want to suck on their thumb (or finger as seen here:)

**It seemed that from the start of our stay, we happened to have the right person at the right time for what needed to happen. Starting with the fact that my mom was in town to help with Joaquin's birth. This is the first time she has been able to come and she sacrificed over 2 weeks of her vacation time to come. The first week and a half were uneventful in terms of baby needs (if you don't include the desperate need I had to recover his carseat). I felt more than not worried about my kids when we had to leave early to the hospital. I was even more at peace when I was told are stay would extend for 14 days. The nurse that helped us very first was kind of a no nonsense but very loving grandma character who even hugged me for awhile and attended to my emotional roller coster self. I would be strong as I watched his various proddings including the spinal tap, but broke down when they talked about how sweet and cute he was.


It also so happened that Fernando's parents had already arranged to come out the night that my mom left which covered the next week of kid watching. Fernando's schedule was nights which allowed him to help be a stabling influence on the kids and the list goes on and on.

Much to post

Let's just say, the last few weeks have been interesting--


but good.