Month: August 2011 (Page 4 of 5)

wheels on the bus

August 16, 2011 / Michele Minehart

Miss M is currently in that stage where she loves to please us. When we provide instructions and she carries them out to perfection, she revels in the attention and nearly begs for a new challenge to commence. It’s a beautiful stage. I’m shopping online for big girl panties so we can fully capitalize.

H Boy has clearly moved out of that stage.

Yesterday the near-meltdown came when he wanted to take the little tires off of his magic school bus. Husband asked him not to as we would likely only be able to find 2, or at the most, 3 of the tires within 10 minutes. But hell hath no fury in comparison to a two-year-old bent on a mission.

This came after an episode involving a breakfast fiasco. It was 9:30am and we were on power struggle number 3. Have I mentioned how much I love parenting? How convenient it is?

But Husband and I had to ask the questions of ourselves, seeing as how H’s existential capabilities are few and far between, about our role in the struggle. Just because we can use proper English grammar does not make us the automatic winners of the struggles.

The conclusion we came to was… did it matter if we lost the bus tires? Will his childhood be wrecked if he were to own a toy with less than perfect resale value? We decided that the opportunity to learn how fake tires go on and off the bus was probably of more value than trying to a) fight it out and b) convince him the bus was a great toy as-is. Because, really, it’s just a bus. Aside from the removable tires there’s little flash nor flair.

I say this like some sort of parenting professional, but it’s really really hard for me to live this conclusion. To just make the mess, to give up on keeping things tidy, to lose the tire, to risk breaking the X, Y or Z. In all honesty, it’s much easier to have robotic children that listen to your every command, but robots lack something in the creativity category. Come later in life, robots are really only good at taking orders, they’ll just switch masters. While I can sit back and say that I don’t want to raise robots for someone else to order around, in the same breath from the other side of my mouth I say I want children who listen and mind their parents.

Clearly I’ve read too many parenting articles and books. I want my children to question authority until I am that authority. I want my children to be creative and innovative and live outside the box. Until coloring outside the lines looks too messy on my refrigerator. I want to value the arts until I can’t stand the squeal coming from the school-issued recorder or saxophone or, heaven forbid, DRUMS. Or the glitter. Can I value the arts and hate glitter?

I understand that this stage of life is less about the kids and more about how I respond. I can see the world through the eyes of an uptight 30-year-old or I can enjoy the privilege of seeing as a two-nearly-three-year-old, colored by the opportunities for adventure and exploration. This might be the only way to truly find out life’s big questions: how many ways can you play with a piece of string? What does melted crayon taste like? Which is the best medium for drawing a landscape: ketchup or ranch? If I didn’t have a curious kiddo, I might never know. So rather than preventing such wisdom from escaping in the world, I need to read up on just how to endure these explorations without loosing my mind, or my carpet (who puts in WHITE carpet?!). Or perhaps I should just start saving for new hardwoods…

when genes collide

August 15, 2011 / Michele Minehart

The first time a medical professional tells you that your child has tested unfavorably, there’s a bit of shock, perhaps a dose of denial, a battering of questions and a huge learning curve when it comes to “the system.”

The second time doesn’t get much better.

Baby C went for her follow up appointment at the audiologist today after having “referred out” (a nice way of saying, “you’d better test again, she failed this one”) at the hospital newborn screen. My hopes were high that there was fluid involved at her hospital screen, and my large circle of audiological friends have mentioned that the false positive reading on those tests can be high. Surely we wouldn’t have to face this twice, right?

But it was evident in our first round of testing that there was indeed an issue at hand. So going into the diagnostic test (that which tells us exactly what frequency she’s hearing at what levels), I tried to do mental preparation. But it doesn’t really matter how prepared you are. You don’t want to hear that any part of your baby doesn’t work like a majority of other babies do. They comfort with the fact that she hears us when we speak or sing, she’s just not hearing it all. It’s less about volume than it is about the complete range of sound. But the consolation prize isn’t quite what we’re looking for.

When H was diagnosed, our RIHP service coordinator – one of the best uses of our tax money that I’ve met to date – told me about a poem that described the experience as packing and preparing for a trip to one country only to get off the train and find you’ve arrived in a completely different place. You packed up and learned french before you had the baby, but here you are in Japan.

The first time around such notion was adequate. The second time you think, “how the H*&! do we keep ending up in the Pacific?!”

From here begins the long list of questions and appointments. You’d think it’s easier the second time around, and perhaps that’s true if you remain in the same county, but since we moved we get to re-research audiologists, ENTs, find a PCP, get our paperwork in order for the county health nurse, get connected with early intervention services and pray that all the individuals involved (including myself) check all the correct boxes so we can get her aided by 3 months for optimal results. We’ll probably opt for some genetic testing since the results seemed almost identical (waiting on Dr. Z to confirm that one, I don’t have a copy of both in front of me).

Besides the mechanics of dealing with another diagnosed hearing loss, my brain and heart have dumped into overdrive and overthinking. How do I explain this to people? Should we have done the genetic testing after H’s diagnosis, even though a majority of loss is from an unknown source? (My personality goes directly to “what did I do wrong?”). How do we explain to Miss M that she doesn’t need hearing aids although her siblings do? Does that make her the “lucky” one? And what about the future? We’ve intended to have 4 kids (with a much larger break before our next one). Does the increased chances – pending testing – of another hearing loss warrant rethinking that decision? And if we do decide to have another, and s/he lands in the Oticon boat, does that make us irresponsible?

With H, I’ve been able to write off my reactions to “well, this just happens in life sometimes.” There wasn’t much anger at the Creator because my attitude veered toward an understanding that we’re not guaranteed perfection. But on the second time around, the temptation to feel like we’re getting the shaft looms much closer. We’ve had our share of “overcoming”, been given our “chance to learn” and live all those sayings that we can cross-stitch into a pillow. Did we fail our first “opportunity for growth”? Was that just a practice round? Why lump kids with “issues” into one family instead of spreading out the home visits?

So here we are. And whispering in the back of my mind is EB, a friend whose daughter faces far more difficulty and whose life has been much more significantly altered in ways that aren’t easily helped by wearing a small electronic device tucked behind her ear. It could be so much more. Our grief could be much, much deeper.

But, if I’m to be honest – a goal of this blog – I don’t feel like feeling grateful that our diagnosis is less cumbersome than another. I don’t want another diagnosis. I don’t want the visits. I want to age out of HMG and RIHP. I don’t want a reason for the public health nurse to know my name. I don’t want to compare IEPs for the next 18 years. I don’t want the people who are helping us to begin every sentence with “well, you probably know this because of her brother…”

I don’t want my “normal” kid to be the “atypical” one.

But this is just Day 1 of Round 2. Perhaps in the morning it’ll be different. Husband is a firm believer that it’s better to re-examine in the morning, after we have a chance to sleep off the day’s emotions. This is a good time to live by that assumption. So… good night world.

it’s a party in iowa…

August 12, 2011 / Michele Minehart

Husband, the staunch Republican that he is, insisted upon watching the debate last night. I love a good debate for debate’s sake, so I stayed up for the whole thing. Thank goodness for DVR so that we could rewind every time I felt the need to insert my own opinion on why everyone was wrong. But I found myself appreciating the party a bit more after the debate (they really lost me last election, but I’m willing to be woo’d back). I’ve garnered some opinion on several candidates…

Mitt – I like the idea of a businessman at the helm of creating jobs. His snippity comment about a president having to have had a job in order to create them stuck with me. He’s also quite aware of the realities of business, ie, some businesses fail, that’s just part of a free economy. But I’m just not sure I like the idea of a CEOish person also serving as the Commander and Chief of our troops. He may know tax law, but we’re in the middle of a war. He scored a few points saying he’d listen to our generals and take their advice, but I’m still squeemish. Perhaps a good VP with a lot of domestic job responsibilities?

Ron Paul – I likey. He’s wicked smart, probably a bit too brilliant for a chunk of our country to really appreciate. I don’t go to his extremes on some issues (is he a bit on the libertarian border? I’m not familiar with those ideals, but he seemed quite different from the rest of the panel), but what I really appreciated was his honesty and that he wasn’t trying to say what people wanted to hear. He wants to pull troops from the middle east ASAP, and much of the party doesn’t necessarily agree… but he minced no words about his opinion. I like a leader that doesn’t care if he’s liked all the time, because some hard decisions aren’t going to be popular, but that doesn’t make them less right.

Newt – I was prepared to dislike him, but he did a nice job of putting the media in their place with all their sliced and diced quotes. He doesn’t want to play the political race games (specifically media wars), but he is all about politics. I need to hear more specifics from him, but he’s no longer in the basement for me, even with his extracurricular girlfriend issues.

Santorum – the guy simply reminds me too much of mega-preacher Joel Osteen. I can’t vote for that. And whoever is getting him ready for these events left the teeth-whitener on too long.

Pawlenty – a$$. Stop criticizing everyone else and put up some real “this is what I would do” arguments.

Cain – If I’m going to vote a businessman, I’ll probably go with Mitt. He got a bit shaken on a few early questions, but I really appreciated some of his later responses. There was one specific that I liked, but I can’t seem to find it on my recall.

Huntsman – He looks like the grinch. Perhaps that’s not a reason to vote a certain way, but I can’t seem to back a man that stole Christmas. I did like his stance on same-sex unions, admitting that as a country we have a ways to go in terms of equity.

Bachmann – neither here nor there on her. I like some of what she had to say, but nothing really made my fist pump. However, by 5:30 this AM I was stewing over the attempt to make her choose between her biblical hermeneutic of what it means to “submit to your husband” and the insinuation that a woman can’t be faithful to her beliefs about marriage roles and a strong leader at the same time. There’s probably going to be a post on that later. Maybe even today if the babe naps well.

Highlights of the evening in our living room included discussion about Israel and foreign policy based upon religious beliefs (perhaps we’re favoring a bit much the younger sister when she says, “he hit me first!”??), legislating social issues vs. the Church as the voice and vehicle (civil unions, abortion), and a constant looking at one another, eyebrows raised incredulously over just about anything that Santorum said. After 5 years of marriage, Husband and I are able to talk about money without raised voices or crossed arms. I think we’re on the right track to do the same about politics…

Month: August 2011 (Page 4 of 5)

wheels on the bus

when genes collide

it’s a party in iowa…

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