Knocking

Do you ever wonder where your kid picks things up? I have seen other kids repeat words just like their parents would say. For example, a kid telling another kid “no, don’t do it that way” and all they are trying to do is put some Lagos together or something. Kids pick up so much of what we do and say.


I have yet to experience Luke repeating anything I say. As much as it might annoy me in time, I look forward to that day!! I think it will be wonderful!! I know it is coming, just in its own time.

Even though he may not repeat words, he is starting to repeat actions. The other day I was feeding him lunch and he started knocking on the table. Knocking!! Where did he get that from?? I was perplexed, but at the same time I thought it was great!! The fact he was doing something like that is another step taken in the direction of his development.

So throughout the day we knocked…on everything; the kitchen table, walls, refrigerator, doors, and when I went to the bathroom we knocked back and forth through the door. It was great!! One of the best days I have had in a long time. I found out a few days later from Luke’s grandma, that he picked up the knocking from his grandpa who would “knock” with him at the dinner table.

Those grandparents!! What are they thinking, trying to trick us moms into thinking our kids come up with these things on their own!!

"Mommyproof"

I know that certain things need to be childproof. But, sometimes I have to wonder if instead of testing these things on children, they use adults instead. It is like they are trying to keep us out as well!! Sometimes I have such a hard time just trying to open the Cascade bottle for the dishwasher, or even the lid on a jar of spaghetti sauce. Maybe I just need to work on my “mommy muscles”.


Every day I need to give Luke 6mL (total) of medicine to help the acid in his stomach, 3mL at night and 3 mL in the morning. I never had a problem with the medicine bottles in the past 8 months that he has been on this medicine. But, a few weeks ago…on a morning where we were going to have to go to therapy, I could not get the stupid lid off the medicine bottle. Childproof lids…uurrrggg!! I felt like a complete idiot…but I tried and tried…and could not get the lid to catch when I pushed down on the cap!! It was a bottle that we had been using for about a week and a half already…so I knew it had been working. I couldn’t figure it out.

I knew Luke really needed his medicine, if he doesn’t get it you can tell he is uncomfortable or in pain. Knowing this I knew I needed to figure something out as quickly as possible, so he could still get his morning dose. So we left early for therapy and went to Wal-Mart where we got his prescription filled. I told the ladies at the pharmacy my problem, and they were sympathetic. Of course one of the ladies was able to get the lid off without much difficulty!! Boy…did I feel silly!! Then they asked if the medicine was kept out of the reach of children…if so they would give me a “regular” cap…so I wouldn’t have to worry about the childproof stuff. I was grateful, but also felt so dumb….after all it is supposed to be “childproof” not “mommyproof”, right? Oh well….we survived and they gave me the “idiotproof” lid. It worked…I was happy…we didn’t even need to break the bottle or anything to get it fixed.

You’ll be happy to know that we had Luke’s prescription filled again last week and so far it hasn’t been “mommyproof”.

Shoes?

What is it with shoes? Luke absolutely loves shoes. He throws them, hides them, tries to eat them…it never ends. When I leave the door open to the garage to go get something out of the deep freeze, he throws my shoes out the door. And, of course when I put them back inside…he quickly throws them back out in the garage…laughing. It is so hard to be the “mean mommy” and say “no” and mean it when you just want to laugh…especially when he is laughing and obviously loving what he is doing. As my husband says, he can be a “knuckle head”. But a cute one.


Then when I try to load the dishwasher, he puts my shoes in the bottom rack of the dishwasher. Once again I take them out…but he quickly laughs and puts it back in. Is he trying to tell me something? Are my shoes stinky?

Other times he must think they are yummy, especially my bright pink galoshes. When he isn’t throwing these out the door or into the dishwasher, he tries to eat them. When I take those away, he tries to eat his own dark blue pair. What is it about the rubber? Or is he just mouthing the shoes like all his other toys? Who knows. It is just one of the many things I see him do and shake my head.

Mommy Brain

I know I have mentioned this kind of thing before, but I must tell of the latest “mommy brain” episode. This last week I have forgotten or misplaced several things. Last Sunday I left my coat at church, which luckily I didn’t need since it warmed up so well!!


Then on Thursday a friend helped me out when I took Luke to PT, since I also needed to take our baby with us. Of course I needed to get the oil changed on the car as well. So my friend met us at the oil changing place, and was our “taxi” for the day. That day it was raining throughout the day and when we returned to get my car after therapy, we were dealing with rain, children and car seats….and in the process we forgot something important. No…it wasn’t Luke or the baby…I didn’t forget the MOST important things. But, I did leave Luke’s walker in her van. Sine we didn’t really need it again until Sunday, we went a few days without the walker. Although I was kicking myself for forgetting it, it wasn’t the end of my “mommy brain” week.

Yesterday (Sunday), we were loading up kids, diaper bags, books, and my nephew’s present for his graduation (a card). You know how when you deal with kids sometimes the little things just get forgotten?. Well, that’s what happened. I put the books, card and purse on the roof of the car while I loaded Luke in his car seat. When I was done I grabbed everything off the roof…or at least I thought I did. It wasn’t until we were celebrating my nephew’s graduation and I was looking for the card, that I realized I must have left it at home or something.

My angel was looking out for me once again, as it turns out my husband’s parents found the card in the driveway when they came home with the kids after church. It has a nice dirty tire mark on the front marking the adventure it had yesterday morning. I’m just glad it didn’t travel down the road a couple miles like my library books did that last time I experienced “mommy brain”. My husband thinks I’m nuts, he just doesn’t understand what kids can do to Mommy’s brain.

Feeding two?

Do you ever have one of those “blonde” moments? It seems like when I became a mom, those moments were showing up more often. One of those latest moments showed up when I was trying to be efficient and in a hurry. Those two things don’t always go together well.


To truly understand this, you have to remember that with Luke he is about at a 12 month level with feeding. He can use his hands or fists to grab food…but we are working on using forks and spoons. Which when we just give them to him, he throws…so we have to help him with that.

Over the last month I have tried to feed both Luke and baby girl at the same time. You would think this would be easy, and efficient…right? Well at first I found it to work pretty well. So of course once I get something down well, I feel like I can add something else to the mix. For example; I can feed them both and listen to the radio, or even eat my food as well. The other day I did a dangerous thing. I tried feeding them both while talking on the phone.

I was giving Luke his normal breakfast of scrambled eggs and a banana, and baby girl her puréed bananas. Maybe that was my first mistake, feeding them both bananas. My subconscious mind probably figured as long as they both got bananas I was fine.

I’m sure you can figure out what happened...I was so in tuned with my conversation I was just automatically feeding Luke…before I realized it I think I gave him at least 4 spoons of the baby’s bananas!! When I caught that, I laughed and tried to focus better. Then I got back into my conversation…and began feeding automatically again. And I’m sure you can guess what happened…yep...I gave the baby part of her brother’s banana. The only good part to this was that she realized right away that something wasn’t right…the the banana never really got inside her mouth. I think it was the action of her spitting it out, that made me realize what I had done.

It’s a good thing she keeps her momma in line!! Luke doesn’t care what he eats…as long as he eats…so I didn’t catch it as quickly. I think I better go back to just feeding both of them, and forget trying to get anything else done at the same time!! As much as I like to be efficient, I’m afraid one day I may try to feed something to the baby and she decides she’ll try it instead of spitting it back out at me.

Packing to Fit

In preparation for our trip to Baltimore with Luke, I have begun a list of everything we need to take. We are taking the baby, so we need everything from two pack-n-plays to a dish rack to wash the baby’s bottles. In that process my husband and I have also been trying to figure out what size vehicle we should rent to take out East. We knew our car would be too small and our SUV is so big that he doesn’t want to drive it through Baltimore traffic. Plus, it is a long trip and my husband prefers not to put all the miles from this trip on our current vehicles. So that leaves us with the option of car rental.


The only problem is we had a “friendly debate” as to what kind of car we should rent. We don’t want to spend too much money on the rental and there was a huge difference in price between the various car sizes and a minivan, so after a few days I lost that battle. I figured a minivan would have plenty of room, not be too long for traffic, and would get good gas mileage….but no it costs too much. Then we began to “debate” about the car size; there are mid-size (we have), full-size, premium, luxury, and then there was the mid-size SUV. So many options! We spent so much time trying to find dimensions of trunks online, only to find volume capacity. That helped, but we really needed to know the dimensions so we could figure out exactly what would fit.

My husband was so sure we could fit everything into the trunk of a full-size car, and I’m thinking…no way, it is only one size bigger than our car and according to the internet only about 1 foot more in cubic space!! So I set out to prove my point!! I cleared a rectangular area in the kitchen and took my list I had been working on for our trip, and figured out what would have to go in the trunk. Then, I proceeded to pack. Yes, I know I was making something that should be easy…hard….I do that a lot. But, once I got everything into my little rectangle I measured and knew I would need a lot more space than what was in our trunk. After all I had a large suitcase, medium suitcase, two pack-n-plays, double stroller, small box of food, jug of water, dish rack, portable booster seat, bath seat, and dish pan. Those were the bigger things anyway. I left that pile there the whole day so my husband would see what I had been trying to tell him. When he got home from work, of course he said “it will fit…I bet I could fit it into our car”. I’m definitely not agreeing with this….so after supper…what does he do?? Yep…he starts packing up the car…so sure it would all fit in our trunk.

Of course, Luke got mad with daddy left the house to do this…so I opened the front door so he could see daddy through the screen. So here was our happy family; my husband shoving stuff into the trunk and Luke looking on with so much interest and saying “aahhh….aahhhdaahh”…as if he was cheering daddy on. Then there was me, the skeptic…who kept peeking out the window…and thinking…oh no, he may just get it to fit!!

Well I have to admit…I was wrong…..everything fit. I have no idea how he did it. I’m usually the one who gets everything to fit when we pack everything up on trips. I now have a new respect for my husband’s abilities to pack!! So I lost the debate and we are taking a full-size car out East!! I can only hope when I go to pack for real, that I didn’t miss anything else big we need to take!! It may just have to stay behind, whatever it is!!

non-verbal communication?

You know, sometimes I think speaking can be over rated. There are definitely times where I wish I could communicate verbally with my son, like when he needs to go potty or when he gets frustrated and obviously wants help with something. Although I would love for communication to be a two-way street, Luke manages to get across his point pretty well without words. He has very expressive eyebrows. Ever since he was born, you could really tell when he is thinking hard about something. His eyebrows turn up and this forehead scrunches together. Like he is says “Hmmm….I wonder?” When he is surprised or impressed by something he raises his eyebrows as if to say “wow, what was that” or “that was cool”.


I find myself having conversations with him, while reading his facial expressions. I might say something and then he’ll respond by looking at me a certain way and then I say something out loud for him. I know many moms do this when their children are babies, but it seems to me like that stage may never end.

Despite that, it is amazing how Luke can communicate his sadness, surprise, curiosity and even his humor just by looking at me. I love the personality I see and pray he keeps it when he starts to form all those words that I know are floating around in that cute little head.

The walk-dance

Every day we go through the same routines. Luke needs OT, PT, and Speech every day. It is usually easy to incorporate these things in all our play time. Only doing so takes extra effort because it isn’t like showing a child how to do something a few times and then they know how to play with a certain object. No, with Luke you show him and do it over and over again only to continue to watch him struggle. For example, one of his toys we work with in order to refine OT skills is the piggy bank. You may have seen them. You put the coins in the top and then can take them out the door on the side. Luke knows what to do, only he struggles holding on to the coins with only the thumb and forefinger. So instead of putting the coin vertically as it should go, he winds up coming in at an angle or completely perpendicular to the pig. After a couple tries he gets frustrated and reverts back to his favorite game…throwing. So instead of putting the coins in the pig, he throws the coins around the house. Things like this begin to take their toll when doing them day after day.


All of this to say how silly a desperate mom can get. When things become so routine sometimes you have to act a little silly to make it enjoyable again. The other day, I don’t know if it was the weather or the music I was listening to on the radio, but the silly momma showed her head. We were outside working on our “walking” skills with the walker and listening to the radio in the garage. My baby girl was watching us make circles in the driveway while pushing up on her tummy. And, when Luke began to drag…and not want to really walk I thought “I have to do something to get him focused and walking”. So how do you get a 2 year old who doesn’t want to walk…. to walk? Why dance of course!! So here we are outside for all to see, a 2 year old walking with a walker and a momma who is dancing in front of him trying to be entertaining. Of course I could only dance for so long. So I alternated between hip hop moves, running in place, a tap dance routine I learned in high school (which both Luke and our baby girl found quite funny), hop scotch, and running backwards. Then when I got tired running in place I decided to run circles around Luke, then I ran circles around our baby girl. I’m sure that if any of our neighbors saw us that they thought I was completely nuts. Such is the life of a special mom!!

Sleep?

Luke has never slept in the car well. Our first long trip, about 2 hours, to my parent’s house for Christmas when he was 3 weeks old was our first real test. We were told, “oh leave when he has a full belly and he’s ready for a nap” and “when he’s tired enough he’ll sleep”. Well, it didn’t work. On the way down to my parents he screamed for about 1.5 hours. On the way home it was for the entire trip!! It didn’t get better from there. We eventually found that blasting Randy Travis seemed to get him quiet…never put him to sleep, but it did get him quiet.


Then we took our first Wisconsin vacation trip when Luke was about 8 months old. We thought surely sometime in the 9 hours on the road, he would fall asleep. But, no…the most he did was one 10 minute cat-nap. The rest of the time he was usually crying. Only when he heard Randy Travis did he let up.

Now he is old enough, that he will watch cartoons on our travel DVD player. Although it has to have music, like Baby Einstein does. It is wonderful to have something to keep him happy when he is tired from his therapy sessions and we have a 35 minute drive home. Although, I tend to get tired of hearing “Old McDonald” over and over.

We are going to embark on a real adventure soon. We are taking Luke to John Hopkins to a Center for Hypotonia, hoping to find answers. Only the drive is about 12.5 hours…I get exhausted just thinking about it.

In preparation for this trip, and thinking of my husband’s and my sanity, we are trying out various cartoons and musicals so we don’t have to listen to the same songs for the whole 12.5 hours there…and back. We have expanded past Baby Einstein to Robin Hood (who can forget that whistle song at the beginning), Sleeping Beauty (my husband isn’t sure he wants his son watching that one), and of course some of my personal favorites; Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and Oklahoma! Of course all of this stretches my husband’s “ideals of a boy”, after all his boy should be a “man’s man” or something like that. I try to explain that doesn’t mean he can’t appreciate some good music.

I think I will win that battle when my husband doesn’t have to hear certain songs over and over for 12.5 hours. Especially if we don’t have to listen to Randy Travis the whole trip!!

Meal Time

It is one time of day I used to dread. Now I am used to it, but some days it can still be too much. Ever since Luke was a newborn, he has loved to eat. Not only loved it, but hated to stop. No matter how much I fed him, he always wanted more. The problem is when I overfeed him he spits up the excess food.


When I tell people about this I’m not sure they really understand. I say that because every time someone new sees him eat, they are in shock. It is like watching a vacuum cleaner suck up all the food on the plate. That is why we have yet to trust him with a plate full of food. We often get a plate ready and then have to give him two bites at a time. Even then, if he is hungry he will scream and throw a fit until he gets more. All while his mouth is stuffed full of food already. How can he possible have room for more?

For the longest time he would never chew his food. So he would stuff his mouth and swallow. I was always so worried he would choke. Now at 28 months, he is finally chewing pretty well. Now our focus has shifted from chewing to throwing. No matter how hungry he is he will throw the plate with food if you get it in reach. Not only that but he’ll throw his spoon, fork or whatever else you may try to give him; even his juice cup. Of course after he throws it he screams like he didn’t mean to throw it and he wants it back. Eventually we’ll get back whatever he threw, usually it is needed…like the fork or spoon. But, when he throws food we definitely don’t give that back to him.

I dream that one day he will eat independently; no throwing of food, utensils, or plates. Maybe one day that dream will come true, until then we keep plugging away.

Shopping alone?

Shopping with two young children? You would think that shopping carts would be more accommodating for more than one young child. I guess stores would expect a two year old to walk along side, but when your two year old doesn’t walk and you have a 5 month old…what can you do? I pray.


A couple weeks ago, Luke and his baby sister and I left early enough for his Speech Therapy to get a few groceries at Meijers. It was the first time attempting to take them both on my own. So I prayed that I could easily find one of those carts I had seen there before, the ones with the bench extension. Well, I was so happy to see one of those outside in the cart rack in the parking lot. I thought I had it made, I even found a parking place right next to the cart rack.

The shopping went well, and I thought “all right I think I can do this”. Then our shopping was done and we went back out to the car. I loaded Luke in first and then went to get the infant carrier out of the cart, and found it to be stuck. I tried and tried and couldn’t get the latch to unlock from the cart. So here I am in the parking lot, now running late for therapy and tipping my baby girl in her car seat at different angles trying to get the latch to unlock. Then, of course, Luke starts crying and the baby girl starts crying. I’m sure someone was walking by wondering what I was doing to my poor children.

Anyway, I finally figured out I would probably need to flip the seat upside down in order for it to unlock. I debated for about 10 seconds leaving my girl in the seat while doing this, then thought better of it. So I took her blanket, laid it in the bottom of the cart, took my baby girl out of her car seat, laid her on the blanket, and then flipped the seat upside down. It finally popped out and unlocked!!! Only I wasn’t done, I still had to strap my baby girl back into her car seat so we could leave.

After packing her back up we finally we able to leave. By some miracle we were only 6 minutes late for therapy. After that experience I have been extra careful in how I place the baby’s car seat into a shopping cart. Who knew it could be so hard just to get the car seat out of the cart?

The Diaper Wrestle

I’m sure once again I am not the only one to go through this. To understand this better, I need to explain that Luke is allergic to milk therefore leaving us to using Soymilk. Soymilk has a very different effect on the body’s “cleansing” system than whole milk. When stool should be hard, it is very soft. So it is often hard to tell if it is diarrhea or just regular stool for him.


The “wrestle” begins every time Luke has a diaper change. Once I put him on the floor he starts rolling over or grabbing the wet diaper. This isn’t too bad until the dirty ones come. Twice in the last week he has managed to get his hands in it. So here I am trying to keep the mess contained, since it is so soft, using my elbows and knees along with my hands to keep Luke’s hands and feet still. We could probably be in the circus they way things go most days. Despite my best efforts this week his sneaky little hands have gotten loose to grab the diaper so he can throw it. Only instead of throwing he has manage to get his hands in his stool. YUCK!!!!

Then the wrestle isn’t over, after all the clean diaper is not yet on. So now I am trying to keep his hands away again AND make sure he doesn’t stick them in his mouth as well!! Boy, sometimes I wish I had an extra set of hands! When I do get on the clean diaper, we then walk to the bathroom to wash our hands really well. Since I can’t hold his hands to help him walk, I am holding on to his wrists. And since I don’t trust him I can’t let go of the wrists until the water is flowing and we are digging into the dial soap. That means I am trying to pull/kick the step stool over to the sink while controlling the little hands, and when it is finally there I lift Luke by the wrists (since he is just now getting the idea of stepping up on something). The whole thing is exhausting.

Although most moms when they got to this point probably said…”ok, that’s it…time to potty train”, that isn’t an option for me. With Luke’s lack of walking skills, it makes it challenging to say the least. I might be tempted to try it if he could at least communicate his needs to me. Only right now all I get is “aahh” or “aahh dah” and the only sign language he manages is “go” as in “ready, set, go”. I’m not sure how that would work with potty training. Oh the dream of a potty trained little boy!!

Mommy Forgetful?

Ever think your losing your mind? At the Hearts at Home conference this year there was a speaker who talked about that very thing. The “Mystery of the stolen mind”, or something like that. Basically coming to the conclusion that as moms, our children wind up taking all our brain cells.


Well yesterday was definitely one of those days for me. I’ll skip all the small stuff and go right to the crazy thing I did. On my way to take Luke to PT, we stopped at the library. I dropped off a couple books and picked up a couple books. When we came out of the library I did my usual routine. One, put books on trunk, two wrestle Luke into car seat, three get DVD working (especially important since we had to go to PT an hour before his nap time), and four get in and drive away.

Anyone else see that I missed a step? I didn’t realize it until I got home with Luke from PT and was unloading the car. I thought I was going insane, where were those books? I know I got them, what did I do with them? Under the seat? NO! Behind Luke’s car seat? NO! In the trunk? NO! Then comes the mental filmstrip, running through everything I did at the library….only I don’t remember getting the books off the trunk!! Oh no!!

Thank the Lord my mother-in-law was here and watched the kids, while I raced to town and re-drove my path I made that morning. My angel was helping out my mind yesterday, because I found both books a few feet apart on the side of the road leading out of town. Somehow I made it about a mile and a half. Both were newer books, and one now looks like it got chewed up and spit out. I may need to pay a fine, but hopefully I won’t have to get a whole new book.

I blame having kids for this, but my husband simply shook he head and said I scare him and that I probably won’t be allowed to check out books anymore. They might even put a sign up with my face and one of those red lines through it.

The Crying Contest

Anyone with at least two kids has more than likely experienced the “crying contest”. More often than not, one or both of the kids start crying. When one cries you can pick them up and console them, rock them, feed them, or whatever they need to help them feel better. Now when they both cry, that is a challenge. I find myself asking, who really needs some comfort and who is just crying to cry? There have been a few times where I couldn’t decide, so I tried and comfort them both. I picked up our baby girl, who is 17 pounds at 5 months old, and try to pick up/drag Luke, who is 27 pounds at 28 months, and make my way over to the rocker/recliner. Then I have to put baby girl on the floor, so of course she starts crying again, and sit in the rocker/recliner and pick up Luke and put him on my lap. Then, I have to elbow him back (which makes him cry harder) so I can bend and get baby girl off the floor. Then for a few blessed minutes all is right in the world, no one is screaming. Then of course eventually Luke will start crying again, trying to take out my eardrums. Then after he cries a while, baby girl (who can’t be out-done by her big brother) starts crying as well. If I rock enough all is quiet again.


Then sometimes, one starts crying so the other one starts crying. It is like a sympathy cry or something; do they really need to do that? I can handle the crying most days. But, if Luke cries for too long I can only handle so much. I don’t know if it is because he is a boy or because he is 2 years old, but his cry is SO loud. When it gets to be too much, I put him in the hallway and shut the doors and put up the gate. What is amazing is I place him all the way at the end of the hall, and then within about 10 minutes he has somehow worked his way to the front of the hall. It’s like he knows he’s getting to me, so he wants to make sure I can still hear his crying. I don’t get it.