Charting

I thought maybe today I would do a quick picture blog for you all. The subject matter is inspired by a conversation I had with my brother (Mr. T) yesterday afternoon. We were discussing the Kiddo and his possible growth hormone shots. The problem being the difficulty imagining the height the Kiddo IS compared to the approximate height he "should be".

I realized as we talked that the problem he was having is probably one that a lot of the rest of you are having. I think most of my readers (being family and close friends) do not currently have a five year old child they can look at and see the instant comparison that he's that much shorter then etc.

So I went and found a growth chart online. Copied it and plotted his growth where he is now, and (more interestingly to me) what age he 'should be' for his height. I thought a visual would be helpful for you all.

The Black circled dot is where he's at this year, 5 years old and 37.5 inches tall. The Red circled dot is that height plotted on the corisponding age line (ie he is the height for an average 3 year old). I also plotted in orange the last three years heights so you can see how his curve is slowly dropping off. I cropped the chart but for the curiosity of some I traced the line up as if he were to continue on his current growth curve with (assuming for the sake of simplicity no more drop offs), and his height at 20 years old would be just above 5 ft tall.

Still nothing from the docs on Fridays test results. We don't really expect to hear anything until Thursday or Friday though.

Dragons

Saturday we spent doing nothing. We hung out around the house, made sure the Kiddo ate a lot and drank ever more. We went outside and played starwars with the Kiddo's bike being his star fighter. Not that the Kid needed a down day, but we thought it would be good for him to have one anyway.

Sunday we treated him to his very first in theater movie! The last time I went to a movie was two years ago, the last time I went with the Man to a movie was four! We thought at this rate we'd never see a movie in theater again and it was a little depressing. So I sucked it up and decided the Kiddo is big enough that his hearing wont be permanently destroyed by a theater sound system. That and "How to Train Your Dragon" just opened and I knew the Kiddo would love it.
We told him where we were going, I said the screen was as big as our wall and his eyes got huge. He was a little confused but super excited and immediately started bouncing. We went to one of the bigger theaters near us because we wanted to have some extra space. The Kiddo is small enough they didn't make us buy him a ticket!! That was a very pleasant surprise. Apparently this theater has reserved seating, which was new to us! It was neat to be able to pick the seat and then take our time getting to it. You can even buy your tickets online! We may just have to do a family theater movie day a little more often.

The Kiddo loved the whole experience. He LOVED the movie, it was the best possible "first movie" we could have picked. He got to hold the popcorn, and ate most of it himself. I loved the movie as well, it is one we all highly suggest you go see if you want something fun. The movie nachos were as good as I remembered them, and I'm pretty sure I gained 10 pounds. When I asked him as I was tucking him in what his favorite part of the day was he said "going to see the movie in the theater, it was SO cool! Can we please do it again? And again and again and again" and he grinned at me.

Stim Test

Yesterday was the Kiddo's 4 hour, in hospital Growth Hormone Stim test. Things went pretty smoothly if you accept the fact that, medically speaking, the Kiddo always has to do things the hard way.

We left the house in a snow storm and drove the 40 minutes to arrive at the hospital right one time. Since we were going through the Rapid Treatment Unit we got to skip regular registration and go back and do it there (which was much quicker). Then we went back to our room (nice that we got a private room for this) and the Kiddo got hooked up. An IV in the left arm, cuff and o2 monitor on the right.
As we've come to expect the needle didn't phase him at all, and he did extremely well with the IV insertion. And then we settled to wait an hour or so for them to come in with his first medication. It was taking the pharmacy awhile to get it apparently... Finally at 10'ish they gave it to him and let him wash it down with a little drink. We spent the next hour and a half watching the Disney Channel while they did blood draws every thirty minutes. The Kiddo was pretty happy, it's been several years since he's been able to watch Mickey Mouse Club House.

At around 11:30 they did the last blood draw of the first section of the testing and hooked him up to an IV to give him the medication for the second set of testing. Different meds, same process (blood draw every 30 minutes). At about 12:30 his eyes finally closed and he fell asleep.









He always looks so angelic when he sleeps. I was watching him and notices after about 15 minutes that he was getting very sweaty. His face was flushed and his hair was soaking wet. As soon as the nurse came back in I asked him if that was normal. He said the meds were sort of like Benedryl and tended to put kids to sleep quickly, but he double checked the Kiddo's blood pressure and blood sugar levels anyway. He also said that the Kiddo could eat in 30 minutes and handed us a menu to order from for him. It turns out it's a good thing he did the double checking on the blood sugar levels because it was down to 31! Normally in kids his age it should be around 110 so that's extremely low. The doctor came in and checked him, we made him wake up and gave him apple juice, and some punch slushy to try to boost the levels. At 1 his food came and we got him to eat as much as he could before he got tired again and sat back trying not to fall asleep. We asked him how old he was and what our names were to see how clearly he was thinking, and he seemed to be struggling to remember before answering.












At around 2 his blood pressure had dropped all the way down to 60/20 (average normal for a kid his age is 100/80) and when we asked him again about his name, age, our names etc and he still had to think before answering. Extreme fatigue, brain fog, and confusion are some of the symptoms of the onset of Adrenal Crisis. That's a bad thing, a very bad thing, but I always carry extra medication on me for things like that and, with the docs prompting we went ahead and gave it to him. That plus the food, and two full IV bags of saline, and half an IV bag of sugar saline and he started to rebound. The Doctor told us that she's done many of these exact same tests and that blood pressure dropping is "normal" with some kids, but that the Kiddo is the first one she's ever had a blood sugar issue with. Go figure, he really does always have to do things differently.

At 2:30 a tech came in and took his blood sugar levels for a second time (to make sure the food and iv fluids had rebounded him properly) and they were up to 117'ish. On top of that his blood pressure was going back up (it was at 98/46). That was great news and we were told at 3 to wake him and get him on his feet to walk around and try to walk the sleepiness off.












By the time 4 o'clock hit the Kiddo was doing fine. His blood pressure was up to 114/67 and he was chattering about his robot friend (the iv pole) and thinking of ways it could come home with us. We stopped at Sonic on the way home and bought him a juice slushy as a treat and kept him awake playing Lego Star Wars until 9 when we were comfortable enough with his health that we let him go to bed.

For us it was a long somewhat rough day. For him it was an adventure!! He loved every minute of it, and when we asked him if there wasn't any part of the day he didn't like he couldn't think of one. Kids are so resilient.

I spent most of the down time reading my Nook (wonderful WONDERFUL thing).

Way to early on a Friday

5am feels a heck of a lot earlier then 6am. I wonder why that is. Today would definitely be a good day to have those new glasses I lust after so much. Tired eyes equal itchy eyes equal less then great in contacts.

Heading out at 7 so we get to the Hospital by 8. Here's to hoping everything goes smoothly. Updates this evening (of course).

Maintenance or the lack of

I've been holding steady. Well, truth be told I gained two pounds this past year. But that's pretty close to holding steady so I'm counting it as such.

Lately I've been dreaming about my Grandma. How does this even kind of go with the topic at hand? Well when I wake up I am always left with a feeling of being there. I spent several months with her, years ago, when she was recovering from surgery. I used to run at night, I'd strap in my ear phones and go... then when I got back to her house I'd sit in the living room with her and ice my ankle and just be. It was a good feeling, comfortable. So that's the feeling I've been waking up with, I think it's because I've been leaving the window open at night and the cool air reminds me of running at night in Florida in the winter. So, maintenance be darned... I am going to be trying to do the Couch to 5k program.. which, if I'm lucky, my old geezer lazy bones body will be able to handle AND should probably cause me to drop a couple pounds as well. And ultimately it'll get me running again, which can't be a bad thing.

Now on to the real reason for this blog. My last gasp of freedom. My "add 10 pounds with one bite" food splurge. I am going to make cookies. I know that seems like a reasonable thing to do... After all, eaten in moderation, cookies aren't really all that bad a thing. But THESE cookies. I think they're gonna be my downfall. Brownies, with chocolate chip cookies baked on top? and a praline layer in between. Yeah, they're gonna get gobbled.

Do Re Me

Sew ... So I've been sewing. A few months ago I made Lady D a bag for her Nook. Then, I upgraded my design and made one for my friend several weeks ago. My mother in law saw it and thought it was great so when she received her own Nook earlier this month she requested that I make her one as well.

She sugested that I make several and put them up for sale. I've heard that before from other places (with other things) but I'm not very enthusiastic on the idea. Yes it would be a work from home job, and yes I could possibly make some money from it. But it's very hard to sell something like this for an amount that would make it worthwhile. The thing takes me about 7 hours to make, 2 of those hours are spent hand stitching. The pieces don't cost all that much, maybe 20 bucks. But what do I price it at to pay myself for the hours of work? There's that, and the fact that I get bored. I really enjoy making the first few of anything new, experimenting and inventing a pattern that works and looks good. But once those first ones are done, and I've got the process down, I get bored and it takes me longer and longer to get it finished. I can't imagine making a ton of them to sell. And the last big reason I don't like to do things "to order" is because I always worry that it wont be what that person expected. My vision and other peoples aren't always the same. Making it to give as a gift is stressful enough, but if they were paying I think I'd go nuts second guessing myself on if it was good enough.

Anyway for my MIL I had all the materials and put one together for her yesterday. Extra thick batting quilted into the inside super soft fleece, a micro suede on the outside, with a magnetic close button. I think it turned out pretty well. It's almost identical to the one I made for myself (mine has green on the inside, and blue side panels vs maroon). I hope she likes it!














I think I will make one more bag (so that Lady D has one of the new improved design) and then move on to other things.

But coats keep you warm..

It snowed last night, it's still on the ground outside. Intellectually I know that it will melt pretty quickly today but I couldn't help but giggle while I watched the landscaping guys go around and fertilize the grass right over top of the snow.

The Kiddo said he really really wanted to go outside and make snow angels. Because angles can fly, and coats will keep us warm. So I asked him what was going to keep my nose warm? And he said "well, they make nose coats you know... it's like this (and he balled his little fist up to form a cup) and it will keep the snow from getting on your nose ... except when I throw snowballs at you!" And then he laughed like a loon.

Yeah we're staying in today, I don't need snowballs tossed at my nose. Especially snowballs filled with fertilizer!

20/20

Last Friday, as you know, I went to the eye doctor. I did the whole eye exam thing, along with a contact exam. It ended up costing me 40 bucks, but then again my insurance paid for the other 80 so I suppose I still made out on top.

While waiting for my eyes to dilate I found the most amazing frames! I DO need new glasses, the ones I have are a good 8 years old and give me a headache to wear for more then a few hours. Still my "old" eyes have trouble with contacts all the time so I end up splitting the day between the glasses and contacts and sometimes that's more of a pain then it's worth.

Anyway the frames I fell in love with are brown/black on the outside and spring green on the inside. They are plastic frames and very VERY cute. I think they look spunky on me and would love to get them. We can't really afford to get me new glasses right now so I had the tech put all the info into my file so later when we do get that extra couple hundred bucks all I have to do is call and order them.

I took some pictures of them today when I went in to pick up my contacts. I even tried to take a picture of them on me, forgive the crappy angle and the grainy picture I had to take it of myself via mirror. I love them more every time I see them...

And so it goes..

We got the call from the Endocrinologists office yesterday. As expected the Kiddo's first round of blood work (to test to see if he needs growth hormone shots) did not give good results. The nurse told us we needed to set up the in hospital workup. She called our insurance company for us to confirm that the tests are covered, and to get the pre-authorization number. I thought that was amazingly helpful of her to do.

The testing is schedule for next Friday (the 26th) and we will go in at 8am. We will be there until approximately 2pm. They will insert an IV in his arm and leave it there for the duration of the test. He will be given a pill, then have blood drawn at intervals to test the levels of hormone. The testing itself lasts four hours so we'll be taking a couple movies, all his Tag books, and his cyber pocket game system. I'm really glad we have so many portable things to help keep him entertained.

The Kiddo is not supposed to eat anything from midnight the night before until the tests are done so I think we'll take him out for fast food afterwords. It's not really the healthiest, or the cheapest but it's quick and easy and a rare treat for him.

updates as I get them, of course.

This one's for the Man

The other day we were randomly pulled over and after we started driving again we somehow got onto the topic of police cars. We talked about how some of them had the new Dodge car and how we'd heard that didn't like it. Which I thought was odd, how could you NOT like the Charger... I decided it was because some people don't like to change and for them what "was" will always be better then what is new.

So today I was looking over the news and saw this article and it made me think of that conversation and I thought not only might the Man be interested but some of you might be too.

Ford Introduces New Taurus-Based Police Car

I'll admit it, I think I'll always have a little warm n fuzzy place for the Taurus.

This ones for my Sister

Of course, she's going into a different branch but I think it's still somewhat relevant. I keep telling her basic is different now days then what you'd think from what you've been told... unless the person who told you went through it recently. So what's it like NOW?

Army busts abs in training revamp

Just thinking about it makes my abs hurt! But then I always did prefer exercise routine type stuff to running, I get soooo bored running!! What do you guys think?

Saturday Stories

The other night as the Kiddo was getting into bed I told him to pick a stuffy and get under the covers while I turned on his music. He said "okay mom, but you get under your covers and snuggle your stuffy too!" I told him that was the plan, and that as soon as his door was closed I was going to get into my jammies, under my covers and snuggle my daddy stuffy. He burst out laughing and sputtered between giggles "nooo mom, daddy isn't a STUFFY!" I breathed a sigh but before I could say anything he threw a 100 watt smile at me and said "it's okay mommy, I have extra stuffies, you can have one of mine!". He popped up, rummaged around and picked his third favorite (a small stuffed rottie) and handed it to me saying "now you can sleep, xena stuffie will keep you safe".

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The Kiddo is a little obsessed with his starwars lego game. He loves the idea of light sabers and "magic powers" (the force). The other day, he was telling his dad how he wanted to go to the "machine store" so we could buy a machine to shrink him tiny and put him into the tv so he could fight the bad guys with "his friends". Now most of you know the shrink machine idea of his is not a new thing so the Man told him that as soon as somebody made a machine that could actually do that he would buy him one but until then the Kiddo had to be patient. Then the man wandered off and the Kiddo looked at me very seriously and said:

"I have an idea, we will go to sleep and we will dream... yeah... well no... when we are asleep we wont dream, we will think! We will think while we sleep and then when we wake up we will know how to do it. Because the machine store, with the machine that will make us tiny and swoop us into the tv, that store is near Grannies house. And when we wake up we will know how to get there so we can buy it!"

Kind of a kids perspective on "we'll sleep on it and figure it out in the morning"

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This last one happened this morning. The Kiddo woke me up in his usual manner (bouncing up and down on my stomach) and once he saw I was sufficiently awake he asked if we could go to the store. I told him no, daddy had the car and it's supposed to rain today so we're going to stay inside. He sighed and then said "well, can we call daddy? I want to ask him something. I want to ask him to stop at the magic store on the way home so he can buy me some magic powers." I asked him what magic powers looked like when you buy them and he said "they are round and glow'y, they float and then sink in your hands when you get them home, and then you have powers! And you can move things." Then he paused and thought, and he said "there are three stores, the magic store, the costume store that we can go to later, and the sword store... I want to ask daddy if he will stop at the sword store too and buy me a light saver!"

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Updates etc

I finally got motivated enough to set myself an eye doctor appointment. I've been so focused on the Kiddo that every time I think of doing it I put it aside for "later" and it never gets done. I desperately need new contacts and my glasses are about 8 years old and give me a headache to wear for more then a few hours. I go in tomorrow and it will be interesting to be able to see again..

Speaking of Doctors... The Kiddo had his Endo appointment last Friday. Basically he hasn't grown enough this past year to make the doc happy so we are doing tests to see if he requires help via growth hormone shots. That meant blood work and another bone age x-ray. We did both on Friday directly after the appointment. They should have had the results of the x-ray earlier this week sometime but will not get the blood work results until the end of next week earliest. Depending on the results of that blood work we may need to do an in the hospital 4 hour blood test (taking his blood at intervals to more exactly measure how much growth hormone he is producing). Doc seemed pretty sure we'd end up doing the shots, but wants to make sure we do all the correct testing first. I appreciate that, much as I am worried about what insurance will and will not cover I want to make absolutely sure that we need to do extra meds vs just doing them.

Of course all this makes me want to curl up with my Nook and a rather large bag of peanut m&m's and tune the world out. That would be rather counter productive to my weight loss goal. Still, what's one day of binge m&m eating?...

Why he needs a helmet

So after my post yesterday I took the Kiddo out to do a little more bike riding. I try to keep him out there peddling for at least 30 minutes but do not make him do it for any longer then that. If he wanted to I would, of course, let him... but by the time 30 minutes are up his legs are usually pretty tired. Yesterday we played bicycle tag, and he giggled like a goofball. He fell over twice (each time turning to sharply, but falling into the grass so wasn't phased at all). The video I took near the start of our time outside, I caught him before he went down... Considering prior to this he'd only been on the bike 30 minutes last Tuesday I think he's doing amazingly well :)

Excercise

Kiddo took his first "real" bike ride on Tuesday last week. We didn't have a helmet for him yet but I thought he'd be going slow enough that I could stick nearby and catch him. He did amazing! He was peddling fine and I was really happy. I did realize, with how well he did, that we needed to get a helmet asap. Problem was that his head is to big for the 5 year old sizes, but just a bit to small for the next size up (8 year olds size) so we bought him a super adjustable 8 year old style with red flames and vents. He likes it! This afternoon I will try to get him out to bike again, he needs to practice and gain leg strength and stamina. (btw I do know he wasn't wearing his glasses, I don't know HOW we ended up forgetting them on the way out the door but I didn't notice till we were down the stairs... since I didn't trust him not to kill himself while I ran back up, and I didn't want to lug him and the bike back up and down, and we were only going to be out for 30 minutes... I figured I'd keep an extra close eye on him and hopefully nothing bad would happen).

commentary

My internet isn't working the phone company sent me out a new modem and I'm having trouble installing it.

Meanwhile to give you a smile I thought I would tell you what the kiddo did to me when I got frustrated trying to get it to work…

He asked me to play with him and when I told him I had to do mommy work and couldn't he gave me 5 minutes and then as I got more and more frustrated he came in with all the bed pillows stacked them on the floor near me and said "mom it's time for fun break you need to take one and you need to play with me."

Fridays Doc Visit

Kiddo had a pretty uneventful doc visit this past Friday. I didn't expect otherwise, it was with his pediatrician and was a well child visit.

The good:

-33lbs 37 5/8ths

-He's current with his shots so there was absolutely no needle poking!

-Doc echoed our thoughts on keeping him out of school for a bit longer. She agreed that another year of growth and physical development would help a lot with him making friends and that holding him back wouldn't hurt him a bit.

The bad:

-She asked us what we were doing to help him improve with his physical issues (not skipping yet, or jumping, coordination, etc). I felt like I was hit in the gut. I mean yes, the reason he isn't in a tumbling class is a good one, no car to get him there!! But still, to know that something like that is "needed" and then to be asked by your doctor why you aren't doing it!! We told her that we would try to get him into a class like that for this coming year.

-They expected him to pee in a cup! We didn't know so, as usual, we had him pee before leaving the house. Yeah, he told us flat out "there's no water in there" so they were kinda s.o.l. on it.

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This coming Friday (the 5th) we have our next Endo appt. I think this is when we find out if he's grown enough within the past year to continue to avoid growth hormones. I think he has (even though it was just an inch) so am feeling optimistic.

Birthday Party

I think the Kiddo liked the bike we gave him. He didn't really ride it to much, not that I blame him... he still needs to learn to peddle and that's WORK.. he's five, no five year old wants to do work when there are other kids around to play with and gifts still to open!
His Aunt Jo, and cousins, gave him a Transformers Bumblebee costume. He about had a heart attack when he opened it. Then he wore it for the entire rest of the day.
The cake was very very good. We did an icecream cake from Coldstone, yellow cake, vanilla icecream with peanut butter cups folded in. They did two layers of icecream and the yummy sugar icing (a thin layer). We let him pick the design, and so, of course, ended up with a transformers themed cake.
All in all I think it was a really nice birthday for him. Nothing big, nothing to involved. Just relaxing and enjoyable for everybody.