Moms Always Know

It started when she was 18 months old.  She just had her 18-month-well-visit and was lagging behind a bit in her speech development.

Hmmmm........

Then she got an ear infection.  And then another. And then another

By twenty-one months she hadn’t gained any new words since that 18-month-well-visit.  Not one.

“Husband,” I said, “I think there’s something wrong with her hearing.”

“No there’s not, watch,” he said. “Toddler!  Come here!”

And Toddler toddled towards him.

“See? No problem.”

Hmmmm........

Three more months and three more ear infections, and Toddler and I find ourselves at the audiologist and ENT (ear, nose, and throat doctor.)  The audiology test shows she is at the line between normal hearing and hearing loss.  The ENT notices she has had a series of reoccurring ear infections.  I notice that her speech is delayed enough that she now qualifies for speech-therapy, and explain it’s because she’s not hearing properly.  But, the test says she’s technically normal.

“Let’s wait on it,” recommends the ENT.  “Lots of times the ear infections die down during the spring and summer months.  Then, if she doesn’t get more of them in the fall, we may be in the clear.”

Hmmmm........

Fall comes, and following that, winter.  Toddler continues with speech-therapy, and while she progresses, she still struggles with beginning and ending sounds of words.  I have her in to the doctor’s office at least six times, suspecting ear infections.  Two were ear infections.  The others?  “Wow, there’s a lot of fluid behind her ears!” the doctor would exclaim. “But it’s not infected.”

Hmmmm........

Speech-therapy continues. About a month ago, the therapist asks, “Have you had her hearing tested?”

“Yeah, like a year ago.” I replied.

“Maybe you should have her retested,” she replies.  I set up an appointment.

Finally, I bring her back the pediatrician a couple weeks ago with yet another suspected ear infection.  And this time we see a different pediatrician.  “Woah!” she says. “There’s A LOT of fluid behind her ear.”  The pediatrician flips through her chart, noting she’s in speech therapy.  “There’s no way she is hearing properly,” the pediatrician said.  “She needs her hearing tested.” 

Good thing I have that appointment set up.

A week ago I take her back to the audiologist.  Again, she tests on the border line of normal hearing and hearing loss.  But the tests for a toddler are limited.  She responded to her name, and to white noise, but there’s no way to test what speech sounds she’s hearing and what she’s not.  You might test an older child or an adult by asking them to repeat what you say.  “Chair” you say, and then maybe they say “hair” or “where” if they’re not hearing the “ch” sound properly.  But you can’t perform such a test on a two-year-old.

I talk to the ENT.  “Woah!” he says.  “There’s A LOT of fluid back there!”

So I’ve heard.

So we start to talk about ear tubes.  We agree that, infection or no infection, she needs tubes in her ears to drain all that fluid.  It will probably help with her hearing, and hopefully her speech.

And then, almost as an afterthought, he adds, “What about her adenoids? I noticed she’s very congested.”

“Yes,” I reply, “She always has a stuffy nose, always has a bunch of dried-up boogers up there.”

“Does she snore?”

“Yup!  That’s how we know she’s really asleep, and not just up in bed biding her time.”

“I think we should take her adenoids out too, while we do the ear tubes.”

Apparently adenoids can also get in the way of ear fluid draining properly.  Or so I’m told. 

So we set up the procedure for today.  We’re to arrive at the hospital at 9:00 am for ear tubes and an adenoidectomy.  That means that when she wakes up there’s no sippy cup of milk.  And no breakfast.  And that means that the first hour of her day was one epic temper tantrum.  After that first hour, she seemed to be resigned to the fact that we weren’t feeding her this morning, but she was still pissed.

But once we got to the hospital, SHE. WAS. A. CHAMP.

She played with the toys in the waiting room.  When we were sent back to an exam room, she accepted the trade of her monkey jammies for the astronaut-themed hospital gown with no compunctions whatsoever.

She spent the next 45 minutes, while we waited for the anesthesiologist, playing peek-a-boo with the room’s curtain and generally entertaining herself.

She lets the nurses take her vital signs without blinking an eye.

The only time we had tears?  When we parted ways as they wheeled her towards the operating room and we went to the waiting room.  But were those her tears, or mine?  I’m still not sure.  Even though getting ear tubes put in is one of the most common surgical procedures in the country, no one likes to see their baby have surgery.

And what did we hear from the doctor when all was said and done?  “She had A LOT of fluid drain from both ears.  And her adenoids were HUGE.  She’ll definitely start hearing better after this.”

She wasn’t hearing properly?  WHO KNEW?

Lesson learned?  Trust your instincts. Moms always know.

Good job, my little trouper! Hope you’ll be talking up an (understandable) storm, soon!

30 Million Day Blog Challenge #10: Some One or Something You're Proud Of

I don't write about him often, although he has given me explicit permission to write whatever I want about him, good or bad.

I'm going with good.

We were friends before we were a couple, and I admired him so much.  He was so easy-going, able to make friends with pretty much any one, outgoing, all things I was not.  I felt honored just to be able to tag along with him.

And then one day he felt rather honored just to be a part of my life.  And we started dating.

And for the first time in my life, I had a boyfriend who was respectful, who accepted me exactly as I was, who didn't abuse me.  He was nothing but wonderful.

And then one day, we got married.

He supported me through my grueling law school experience, never complaining when I had to ignore him while committing to my studies and giving me a shoulder to cry on when things just got too hard.

He nursed me after the birth of my first child, through a failed breastfeeding experience, a recovery that took weeks, mastitis, and postpartum depression.

In fact, he supported me through all my crazy, my bipolar depression, my anxiety, never once questioning a diagnosis, or my need for medication.  He was nothing but understanding and loving, and he was always there during my darkest days.

From the very beginning of our relationship I knew he'd be a wonderful father, and that proved to be true. He takes a fully equal role in raising our kids, and I couldn't ask for a better father to my children.

He worked his tail off to earn a PhD, something few people do.  And then he worked his tail off at his first job, so that I may stay at home with my kids, at least for a little while.

So this one's for you, Husband.  I love you with all my heart.

Bad Blogger, Bad

It has come to my attention that I do not post as regularly as I used to.

I'm not leaving the blogging world.

I'm just distracted.

Husband's job search is taking longer than expected.  Although he's guaranteed to stay in his post-doc position for another year while he continues looking for permanent work, he won't make enough money to allow me to stay at home with the kids.  We've made it through the past two years relying on his income and our savings.  But it's gotten to the point where I have to get either a part-time or full-time job, lest our savings run out completely.

And I'm conflicted.

I have no doubt that the kids would love being in preschool for a full day if I went back to work full time.  In fact, it would probably be good for Toddler, who still refuses to use a "big girl" cup or use the potty.  She'll bring the cup to her mouth to drink, but won't actually swallow anything.  She loves sitting on her potty, but refuses to actually pee or poop in the potty.  Being in daycare/preschool and watching all the other kids do these activities may be the push she needs to start doing them herself. It would be an adjustment for Preschooler and Toddler, but once they got used to it they'd have so much fun they wouldn't think twice about missing me.

But I'd miss them.

When we lived in Ohio, I worked full time for three years.  Both my kids were placed in full time daycare when they were just infants.  And they thrived.  I had no doubt that they were receiving good care.  But I missed them with all my heart.  You know how some people love being with their kids all weekend, but secretly feel good come Monday when they get to return to work and the adult world?

I never felt like that.

For three years, I never felt like that.

And the activities we already do during daytime?  Speech therapy for Toddler?  Gymnastics for both girls?  Play-dates?  Not to mention that I wanted Preschooler to try out soccer and swimming lessons this summer? They'd all have to be moved to nights or weekends, or dropped all together.

And working part time?  It would mean working nights and weekends, and not earning that much. So I'd be at home with my kids during the day, but not with my family at night.  And it would make taking time off for long-weekend visits to my parents' or elsewhere a bit trickier.

So, it's complicated.

Add to that the conundrum of where I'd look for a job.  Husband is best off staying where we are in Wisconsin, completing the research he's been working on for the past two years.  But for me, there are few jobs here that would allow me to utilize the skills I earned in law school without actually practicing law, which I don't particularly want to do.  I worked crazy late hours while living in Ohio and have no wish to return to such an intense working schedule.  For me, the best place to be where I can find work related to my degree without actually practicing law lies in Minnesota.  But this would involve Husband leaving his research here in Wisconsin unfinished, and taking up a whole new post-doc position in Minnesota while he continued looking for more permanent work.

So what do I do?  Work part-time in retail or something similar?  Find a full time job in Wisconsin totally unrelated to my degree and my previous work?  Move my family to Minnesota?

It's really complicated.

Add to that the fact that the baby we've been trying for, for well over a year, hasn't happened.  I know that God is in charge of this and he's saying, "Not yet." And it's probably for the best, even though I don't fully understand why.  But it still hurts.

So with all this crap floating around in my brain on a daily basis, it makes it hard to be wry or witty, or to write about the funny things that happen in my day-to-day life.

So I'm not giving up on blogging.

I'm just distracted

There's No Holding Hands In Zumba!

I don't like strangers touching me.  Therefore, I'm the only person in the world who doesn't like professional massages. And hands-on prayer weirds me out.  And don't even get me started on so-called "trust falls."

NOOOOOO!!!!!!

I've also started taking Zumba classes twice a week.  It harkens back to my days as a dancer, although with much more jiggling.

My normal Zumba instructor is a dude who kicks my butt with some fun routines for an hour.  But last Tuesday?  HE. WASN'T. THERE.

There was a substitute Zumba instructor.  And she had her heart set on bonding with me.

Every few minutes she would make eye-contact with a class member, head their way and give them a high-five or a pat on the back or simply jammed with them.  Ok.  She's friendly.  I'm sure that comes in handy sometimes.

I was one of the first people she singled out.  About 15 minutes into the class she headed my way and jammed with me.  Okaaaaaaaay.

But apparently our jam-session was so mind-blowing that about half an hour later she approached me once more and held my hand while we zumba-ed together. DOESN'T SHE KNOW I HAVE THE WORLD'S LARGEST PERSONAL BUBBLE?????

I was so weirded out that I immediately excused myself for a drink from the bubbler and then slunk to the very back of the room where she would hopefully leave me alone for the rest of the class.

It's called a bubbler.  Not a drinking fountain.  Not a water fountain.  Bubbler.

Fortunately I was able to get through the rest of the class without any touching or eye-contact or any other weirdness.

But dear-almighty-god-in-heaven let my normal Zumba instructor be there next Tuesday.

Sisterly Love

My two girls get along like champs, at least at this young age.  There's way more playing together than fighting; they're each other's best friends.  And, like friends, they share.

Everything.

Even gross things.

Case in point.  The other night my family went out to a local brewpub with my mom and dad for dinner.  The kids ate macaroni and cheese with a side of apples and mandrin oranges.  Near the end of the meal, Toddler starts choking and sputtering on a piece of orange.  After a moment or two, she coughs up the offending orange onto her plate.  She then places the spit-out orange into her sister's fruit bowl, and then Preschooler promptly eats that very same orange.

Yum. 

Still, I know this sisterly love will only last for so long.  Pretty soon they'll be old enough to annoy each other, and then it may not be until they're grown up that they can say they are best friends again.

But I bet by then they'll be over the whole "ABC gum" thing.  At least, I hope they will.

Sculpt

Hey y'all. Apparently, I'm temporarily southern.  If you haven't already guessed, I enjoy writing. In that vein, I've been challenging myself to write in genres outside of this blog.  Below is an example of something I've worked on.  It's non-fiction, based on real things that happened in my real life.  But instead of being all snarky about it, I've went in the opposite direction.  Law school forced me to write whatever I needed to write in as few words as possible.  In the following piece, I do my best to undo that habit.  It may come off as too lyrical, but again, I'm pushing boundaries.  I'll return to my usual snark next time. Enjoy!

*     *     *

The Venus de Milo sits poised in the Louvre.  Pale marble shoulders flow uninterrupted towards flawless breasts.  A sleek profile, with hair curling around a comely ear, exposes the delicate line of an unscathed neck.

A mask is placed over my nose and mouth, filling with a vaguely sweet fog. Just breath deeply.  Count backwards from ten. My eyes involuntarily close as the gas steals my consciousness with unwarranted impunity. 

An artistic rendering of Venus might be bereft of arms, legs, or a corporeal form.  But there is always a face, a head, and a neck.  If nothing else, these parts comprise a goddess turned human by the deft hand of a skillful artist. At age seven, I lay insensate and oblivious to the scalpel carving a new silhouette, a bloody mélange of Venus incarnate. If you cut and shape a child, hacking away at what is ugly and distorted, will you create a woman that is whole and divine?

I was born with a hemangioma on the side of my neck. 

It's a benign tumor of the blood vessels charmingly referred to as a strawberry birthmark.  At six months, the red, bulbous growth enveloped my left ear and obstructed my hearing. Maybe it will go away. My infant neck was powerless to support its magnitude, which wrecked my countenance and twisted my spine. Maybe she’ll outgrow it. A hemangioma can become ulcerated and infected, adding illness to disfigurement. Maybe it won’t go away.

These reasons were pleaded in hope that insurance would cover the desired series of treatments. A girl should not have to grow up looking so different. The insurance would not pay for cosmetic surgery. My doctor had a saying, a joke. “We’ll get you looking beautiful by your junior prom, I promise!” It became a mantra, really.  You don’t look pretty now, but you will someday.

Plastic surgery is not pretty.  Especially long term plastic surgery, which offers no immediate results and yields no instant gratification.  Did Venus suffer the hunger and thirst that precedes an operation? Would she be fitted with an IV and put under anesthetic, only to wake up in terrible pain, confused, bruised, swollen, and vomiting?   Is this what happens when a goddess impersonates a human?   Each procedure quilted skin to skin with stitches so small and numerous that my doctor could never keep count.  He always lost track after fifty.  Can you stitch a human to imitate a goddess? Despite the surgical procedures, I still did not look normal, so the entire process would be repeated the next year.  And the next. After all, a girl should not grow up looking so different.

For a while, youth shielded me from censure.  The natural curiosity of other children had not developed into full-fledged criticism, and for a while they accepted my hemangioma as just another anomalous encounter in their brief life.  But the year I was seven was the year, I had tissue expanders.  Two sausage-shaped balloons were inserted into my neck and filled with saline. Their purpose was to stretch out my skin, so there would not be a gaping hole in my neck after they severed the remnants of my hemangioma.  For two painful months the implants remained in my neck; two months spent not in the seclusion of a hospital, but at home exposed to the real world. It was for the best, though. After all, a girl should not have to grow up looking so different.

When I first came home from the hospital, something strange happened. Despite my best efforts to force my skull upright,  my head constantly cocked to the right,  My doctor explained my body was reacting to the foreign substance trapped inside the only way it could.  It turned away from what was painful and unnatural. I thought that was odd, that my body no longer recognized itself. 

The bulbous implants embedded in my neck sparked a catalyst that fractured the definition of human. Everybody stared.  Everybody asked questions. After the two months the implants were removed, but I still did not have that instant gratification I so longed for.  I still did not look like every one else.  I still wasn’t ready for the junior prom; and now the veil was lifted. 

Questions and stares ranged from curiosity to disgust. I purposely kept my hair long so it would hide my neck and ear. My family took pains to remind me that my unusual appearance did not make me a bad person.  I was kind, smart, and ambitious, but no one said beautiful.  If some one loved me, they refrained from mentioning my appearance. Should a child grapple with humanity? I knew nothing but an alien shell. 

My last operation was performed when I was fourteen.  What was once inspired by a desire to prevent disability, morphed into pure art and confused beauty with perfection.  This  procedure involved a skin graft.  A piece of skin was taken from my groin, and shaped into an earlobe. Trapped in the throes of puberty, just the mention of the word “groin” made me terribly uncomfortable.  I was mortified that my doctor had not only seen that secret part of my body, but that he had managed to turn it into an earlobe. When I returned to school the next year, with an earlobe where there previously was none, I could not explain to my friends how it was done.  I was too embarrassed.  But mortification aside, this surgery was the most memorable because it was my last.

I was tired of it all.  I was tired of pain, bruising, swelling, and stitches.  I was comfortable with my appearance. Beauty was subjective and fluid; I was never going to look perfect.  But that was okay.  Because I was smart, and kind, and a good friend.  Because I had a family and friends and a God who all loved me, despite my funny-looking ear and my scars. It’s ok to grow up looking different.

When the skin graft operation was over, my mother and doctor discussed options for future treatments.  But I was beautiful.  I did not need more surgery.  I owned my body.  I had my own voice.  

I declined any future treatments. 

My doctor was astounded.  My mother was worried.  But, I was free.   I wore my hair up again.  I no longer cared who saw my ear and my neck. The artist never completed the sculpture, but a human emerged anyways. 

Twenty-five years after that first operation, I gave birth to another hemangioma, a quarter-sized one attached to right leg of my youngest daughter.  I’m inordinately proud this hemangioma.  It’s a second chance to let nature, not the scalpel, take its course.  At two years old, her hemangioma has already lightened considerably.  

A girl can grow up looking different.

*     *     *

Close up of my left ear and neck, seventeen years after the last operation.

A picture of me at 9:00 pm on a Thursday night in my bathrobe.

30 Million Day Blog Challenge #9: Short term goals for this month and why.

The next prompt in my 30 (million) day blog challenge: Short term goals for this month and why.

I started this post back in January, but never finished.  So my first short term goal for the remaining nine days in February is to finish this post.

My second short term goal for what is left of February is to make it through the hellish month that is February.  The weather has been strangely cooperative.  February is easier to deal with when the daytime highs are in the low 40's (Fahrenheit).

My third short term goal for February is to go back to the gym.  The gym I've been paying for since November 2011 that I've neglected to frequent for the past eight or nine months.

You see, sometime early last spring I gave up on going to the gym.  My gym has free childcare, which I couldn't take advantage of because Toddler refused to be torn from my side.  I'd drop her off kicking and screaming, and 15 minutes later I'd hear my name called over the loudspeaker to come retrieve my inconsolable child.  "Don't worry," they said. "Just keep bringing her back, she'll get used to it."

I tried that.

They lied.

That meant I had to go to the gym at night, relinquishing the few hours of family time we have when Husband comes home and/or alone time I have with Husband after the kids are asleep.  But I'm tired of paying $45 a month to continue my inability to climb stairs without being winded. So I've decided to give the gym another try. Today, at exactly 9:13 am, I brought Toddler to the childcare room.  She walked in a bit confused, but soon made a bee line to some toy cars with nary a look back.  I got to work out for one glorious hour on my own terms, without having my name broadcast for all to hear.

My final short term goal for February is to finish a short story I've been writing.  I enjoy starting creative writing projects, but rarely finish them.  And by rarely, I mean never.   This also explains why I have a bevy of two-sentence blog posts waiting to be finished.

And to keep things realistic, here are some more goals for this month:  Eat. Breathe. Sleep. Wake.

Now those are some goals I can manage!  Basic existence for the win!