Names

Even though my son’s name is Luke, I rarely call him that. Have you ever wondered why we even bother to name our kids by a “legal” name at all? With Luke his name has changed throughout his young life. When he was born he was 10 pounds 7 ounces. My husband said he was built like a linebacker and would one day play for the Chicago Bears. That fact coupled with the fact that Luke was constantly hungry; my husband started naming him “tank man” or “Luke the tank man”.


When he was only 3 months old my mother started calling him “mister”. Before long the name stuck, and he would respond to the name “mister” long before his real name. So for much of Luke’s first year of life he was not “Luke”, but “tank man” or “mister”. The poor guy didn’t even know his real name for the longest time; he was probably having an identity crisis.

Then this last year we have being trying out other names for him as well. Depending on the situation Luke becomes “Luke Michael”, “small fry”, “Bud”, "Luke myster" or (my favorie) "Luke-a-Duke". These are just the names that we call him. During his first year of life his cousins called him “baby Luke”. Then after he turned one and he wasn’t a “baby” anymore, he graduated to “Lukie”…although I think they just call him that to aggravate their uncle (my husband).

Not only did we do this to Luke, but now we are doing it to our newest baby as well. I’ve never mentioned her name here before but it is Faith. We usually call her “baby girl”. My husband loves to call her “baby Faith”. Of course with a girl there are so many “cute” options to call her. So I often call her “sweet pea”, “sugar pie”, “sugar plum”, “honey bee” or “cutie patootie”… Sometimes I am so into it that I start to call Luke “sweet pea”…and for some reason that just doesn’t fit so well with him. He may be cute but a “sweetie” of any kind I’m not so sure about. He is more like a little tornado, leaving havoc in his wake…if you get too close you might get “wind damage” from all the toys he throws your direction.

Despite all the names, they are both learning them all. I don’t remember having so many myself…maybe as they get older I’ll limit the nicknames to one or two.

New "wheels"

Every time Luke is able to do something for one of his therapists, they challenge him to the next level. For example, after he was able to stand well at a bench and play with the toys there his PT decided to try and have him stand on top of a board attached to rounded boards underneath. The result was like watching Luke stand in the middle of a teeter-totter, he would put weight on his right leg and shift right or put weight on his left leg and shift left. Of course he did all this while the PT had a hold of his hips and I gave him stuffed animals to throw into a bucket.


Well the latest new “challenge” ended up looking like a comedy act. Luke has gotten so confident walking with his current walker; he’ll even stop and take a hand off and wave to someone. His current walker has wheels in the front are set straight, so that if he wants to turn he has to lift his walker in order to do so. Sometimes when he tries to turn he and the walker start to tip sideways and I have to catch him before he falls. Since he is doing so well going “straight”, his PT thought we could try “swivel wheels”.

Because his current walker is the perfect height for him, the PT just wanted to replace his “straight” front wheels with “swivel” ones. It took a while but we found some wheels to “swap” out with his current ones, just to see how he would do. The wheels we found were so “loose” or easy to move that when Luke started to walk with these he immediately started swerving right and then left. Then his next step sent him into a 180 degree turn to the right, causing his feet to stay where they were but his legs twisted over each other. For a moment he resembled a Twizzler.

After a couple 180 degree steps, the PT got her stool out and stayed in front of Luke and used her feet to control the front wheels so that he couldn’t turn as far and was forced to go more straight than sideways. He was not so thrilled with his new “set of wheels”, you could tell he was frustrated when he wasn’t able to go straight or when he tried to turn. Through this whole experience Luke looked like a “drunken sailor” or something. It was pretty funny to watch.

By the second week of trying swivel wheels the PT had found a set that wasn’t as “loose”. This time for some reason one wheel swiveled and the other one was locked in place. So this made it still kind of hard to turn, but at the same time it was a lot easier than his current front wheels. He didn’t look like he was “drunk” anymore, which was a plus. We’ll keep trying and hopefully we’ll find some swivel wheels that will be perfect for Luke, then maybe we can finally turn him loose in the house with it!! Oh boy, I better start putting the higher breakables away!

More about Happy Kids

I’ve mentioned before how creative we’ve had to be to keep Luke happy. I was thinking the other day about some of our earlier trips in the car.


When we were in the car we learned early on that Luke did not sleep. In fact our first trip to my parents house (about a 2 hour trip) was spent wishing we had ear plugs. Luke was 3 weeks old at the time. He had a full belly, clean diaper, and was ready for a nap….but that didn’t stop him from letting us know he did not like being in the car and on the way home, he screamed the whole way. Eventually we got to the point where anything was better than hearing him scream when we went places in the car, so we started turning the music up really loud to drown him out. Amazingly it worked!! After a couple minutes Luke was quiet as could be, although we also soon found out that the music that would work the best was by Randy Travis. We would try other music off and on, but Randy Travis always worked. Go figure.

Now he no longer screams in the car, but he doesn’t sleep either. When he is really tiered like on a therapy day, he’ll be quiet and then when I have to stop either at a stop light or stop sign he’ll start screaming. Like screaming will lift the car up and over all the other cars in my way, right?

Now, instead of Randy Travis we have moved on to watching DVD’s. But not just any DVD will work to keep him calm in the car. Remembering that music has always worked in the past, we started with Baby Einstein (which always worked) but I can only handle so much “Old MacDonald”. We have now moved on to Veggie Tales Sing Along videos. They do the trick, for now anyway.

Keeping kids happy can make us try strange things, but when they work....they work!!  If you haven't figured out, I am now a huge fan of Randy Travis!!

My Dish Helper

Have you ever had your kids try and help do something that they just aren’t ready for? I think Luke is trying to do this lately. When I am either putting away clean dishes from the dishwasher or filling it up with dirty dishes, Luke is right there trying to “help”.


There are some basic rules I have learned that I must do in order to get the clean dishes put away and still allow Luke’s “help”:

Number 1 – Always put the utensils away first, and never leave the utensil holder in the door. I must take it out as soon as possible or else Luke will proceed to pull out the utensils and throw them on the floor, always starting with the steak knives (of course).

Number 2 – Always pull out the bottom rack first and put away those dishes. If I don’t do this then Luke thinks were done and shuts the door, then I open it, then he shuts it…you get the idea

Number 3 – Always grab more than one dish at a time, it saves time since Luke once again thinks we are done or something and since he can’t shut the door, he rolls the bottom rack inward. So I have to be quick and gather as much as possible before he rolls the rack away. Then after putting those dishes away, I roll the rack out, Luke rolls it back in, I roll it out…once again I think you see the pattern here.

Number 4 – Beware of Luke when he has a juice cup. He will constantly try and put his cup in the dish rack. If the bottom rack is out he places it in there. If the top rack is pulled out he gets on his knees, stretches forward and puts his juice cup there. When he does that, I take it out, then he puts it back in, I take it out, he puts it in, then I take it out and throw it a few feet away, he crawls over and gets it and then brings it back to the rack and puts it back in…a continuous cycle.

If I follow these rules Luke can “help” and mommy can still get dishes done. Now when we load the dirty dishes in the dishwasher the same basic rules apply, only I load all the dishes as quickly as possible, keeping the bottom rack out so that Luke can’t shut the door. Only he is quick and will slide the bottom rack in as soon as he gets a chance. I always load the utensils last. I also make sure they are scrubbed already and put them in as quickly as possible. If I have too much of a “break” Luke will start unloading all the utensils I just loaded. I have to be on my feet around this little guy.

Dishes on the run?

Anyone that has traveled any distance with a baby can more than likely relate to this. On our trip to Baltimore, I found myself doing dishes each night. Any kind of travel you shouldn’t have to do dishes, right? Well with a 6 month old girl who uses 4-5 bottles a day and a 2 ½ year old son who has only mastered the use of a certain kind of Sippy cup that meant that “momma” was doing dishes on the road.


So not only did we take two pack and plays, two suitcases, a double stroller, baby food, formula, water for the formula, books, toys, portable feeding chair, Luke’s walker, diaper bags, Luke’s own plates and forks and spoons, Faith’s own bowls and spoons, and a cooler. But, because I needed to do dishes each night we took a wash basin and dish rack (along with a bottle brush and Dawn).

By the second night I learned that using the bathroom sink wasn’t the easiest thing to do. So I opted for the bathtub. I knew it might not be the most sanitary thing, so I made my best effort to not allow anything I was washing to actually hit the tub. So I’d fill up the wash basin with hot soapy water. Then I would proceed to scrub everything down, starting with the bottles and working my past the Sippy cups, plates, bowls , and finally down to the forks and spoons. (If I didn’t have to feed both kids in the backseat the whole trip I could of saved some washing time in not needed the plates, bowls, and utensils).

Anyway, after scrubbing each thing I had to decide where to put it until I could rinse them off. (I didn’t want to keep the water running this whole time, because usually Luke was finally asleep and the bathroom was right next to him and I didn’t want to risk waking him up or keeping him awake). So I put the soapy dishes in the dish rack, then once I was done “scrubbing” I dumped out the soapy water from the wash basin and then rinsed it out and filled it with non-soapy hot water. Then I would put all the dishes back into the wash basin to rinse them off. Once they were rinsed I put them all back into the dish rack.

Needless to say, this all took much longer to do than what it normally does at home. After doing this for 5 nights I came to the conclusion that no one has really “done dishes” until they have done them in the bathroom of a hotel.

Bumper Walkers?

When we went to OT the other day we met a little boy who is almost exactly one year younger than Luke. They were having a PT session and were trying to get him to use a walker just like Luke has. Since we needed to walk down the hall to the OT’s room anyway, the PT got the other boy set up in the walker and we tried to motivate the other boy by following Luke down the hall.


The idea worked out well, in fact it worked so well that the other boy kept trying to run over Luke with the walker. The walkers actually connected a few different times. At one point the rear wheels of Luke’s walker and the front wheels of the other boys walker were tangled up. The problem was that the other boy kept walking and Luke kept stopping to look back at this boy. It was pretty funny to watch.

Since Luke wanted to look back we tried switching up the order and put Luke behind this other boy and tried to continue walking down the hall. This time the other boy took off and Luke went into “turbo walking” speed. Luke, who is still learning to turn his walker, somehow veered his walker to the right of the other boy and actually tried to pass him. Luke managed to pull up right alongside the other boy. It was kind of like watching a NASCAR race. My husband was so proud that Luke is picking up on his daddy’s love for NASCAR.

So Luke now has a racing buddy. I’ve never seen anything like it.

Go Sippy Cup!

Luke loves to drink…that may not sound so good…but he does. He loves juice, water, milk anything I give him, and when he drinks he seems to give him renewed energy. But, even when he is thirsty he throws his juice cup. It has been easier around the house to simply put him on the floor and then give him the Sippy cup. That way when he throws it he simply crawls after it. Although sometimes he throws it on the couch where he can’t reach it, then of course he screams until he gets it. So when I get it for him or put it where he can reach it, he takes a sip and then throws it back. Then he proceeds to scream again…it is a vicious cycle. After a couple times, I rig up the couch with pillows and various toys so that he can’t throw it too far back, then he can always reach it.


Because of his “throwing expertise” we bought some Sippy cup straps about 4 months ago. I thought surely they would keep him from throwing the cup and he could even drink in the car without me worrying about him throwing the cup everywhere. Well, for some reason he would only drink from the cup with the strap attached if I held part of the cup for him. If I didn’t, he would scream and act afraid of the cup for some reason.

Well, on our “adventure out East” since I was right next to Luke we worked on using his Sippy cup while it was attached to this strap. He would do ok and then try to throw the cup, and then scream like it was attacking him or something…even though I was right there. We finally got to the point where he would scream when he threw it, but then pick up the cup again on his own.

Yesterday, after therapy I tried the strap again hoping that Luke would do that same thing he did on the trip. Where he would drink, try to throw, scream, and then pick up the cup again. Boy was I surprised when he didn’t scream at all and drank the entire cup of juice within 15 minutes of our trip home! Yea!!! I’m so excited!!! I feel like I just won the lottery or something!

It may seem a small accomplishment to some, but this is so huge! He is always thirsty and now I can easily give him juice and he can drink in the car to get an “energy boost”. Yippy!!!

New Rules

After going to Baltimore with the family we have learned two important things. The first is not to use a website to prepay for a rental car. When my husband went to pick up the car we had planned on, an Impala, they did not have any. Therefore they wanted him to get a similar car, but one that had less space than we had planned. Since he knew that wouldn’t work he looked at upgrading the current car. Unfortunately the only upgrades available were intermediate SUVs and Luxury cars. Since the SUVs available had just as little space as the cars he was looking at previously, we wound up getting a black Lincoln. We were styling!


If we hadn’t prepaid, my husband would simply have cancelled and gone to a different rental place to find a mini-van or something. But since we prepaid we couldn’t get a refund or anything, so we were stuck. So we decided to never to that again, at least when taking children and all their stuff.

As it worked out we barely had enough room. The front seat passenger side was completely stuffed, on the floor and seat. In the back I was sandwiched between both car seats and had just enough room on the floor for one foot on each side. The trunk was completely packed, the first couple days it took a while for my husband to pack it since he had to learn the right order to put things in. After a couple days it didn’t take nearly as long since he had it down to a science.

The second rule we now have is to use cash and use credit at hotels only, and then only because they require it. Somehow our credit card number was stolen while in Baltimore. We still have our card, so someone had to have swiped it through a card reader or written the numbers down to use somehow later on. Whoever did it was only able to use it twice at a grocery store before it was shut down, because of abnormal activity. It is now being investigated, but we can no longer use that card.

We used cash most of the trip, but used the card three times in Baltimore. Once for gas, once to eat out, and once at the hotel. So somehow it happened at one of those places. The only place the card was out of our sight was at the restaurant, so we assume it was there…but who knows. Live and learn.

Happy Kids

I’m sure my fellow moms can relate to this. I like my kids happy. No screaming for this or that, no whining no fits….just smiles and laughter. Usually Luke is a pretty happy child. But there are those times where no matter what I do, he is cranky and if I simply stand up off the floor he throws a fit. I’m sure no one else has had that happened, right?


Well, over the last 2 ½ years my husband and I have had various tricks up our sleeves to keep Luke happy. When Luke was pretty new to the world and until about 6 months old or so, we did a couple things that would always work when he was upset. The first was to sit on top of an exercise ball and bounce. Sometimes the crying was so bad we would almost bounce to the ceiling, but it would always calm him. Some nights we just sat on the ball with him while watching the news and when he would start to fuss we would start up the bouncing.

Then other times, if I couldn’t get him calm my husband would pick him up and put him on his shoulder, like a sack of potatoes or something. Then they would just walk all over the house, it would calm Luke right down. Although you couldn’t stop walking or he would start up again. So crazy!

Then as Luke got older we found he loved playing with balls. So when he would get upset we could roll a ball to him and he would start laughing. Who knew that rolling a ball could be so funny? That eventually progressed and he got “tired” of the small balls so we moved back to the large exercise ball. So even to this day, when Luke throws a fit and nothing else will get him to stop his screaming…we bounce the big exercise ball. Something about the noise or the vibrations through the floor, since Luke is usually laying down while crying, calms him right down. After a while, he’ll start laughing…like it is the funniest thing in the world to watch this big ball bounce up and down. Of course, once we start this we can’t stop for a while or else he’ll start crying again.

What we won’t do for some peace and quiet!!

multi-tasking

As a mom, I have had to learn to multi-task. I’m sure I’m not the only one. When I was a teacher I would easily multi-task, but parenting has brought it to a new level. I’ve mentioned before trying to feed both Luke and the baby at the same time and how I usually do ok till I try to throw in a “third” thing, like talking on the phone. Then I would proceed to feed the food to the wrong child.


Well the other day my multi-tasking took on a new level. My husband wasn’t home, so I had to put both kids to bed and do that whole routine without him. I’ve done this before, but those times went more smoothly because the baby was ready for a bottle early or she would wait till after her brother was in bed. But the other night, Luke was ready for his bath and the baby was very fussy…which meant she was ready for her bottle and bed too.

Since there was only one of me, I thought why not try to do it all at once? So, I got Luke’s bath ready and got the baby’s bottle ready. Then, because I usually read a book while Luke plays for a while in the tub…I grabbed that as well. I put the baby on the floor on a blanket in the bathroom and then got Luke undressed and helped him walk to the bathroom. Once Luke was in the tub and playing, I got the baby off the floor to give her the bottle.

Now, you have to understand our bathroom upstairs is barely big enough to turn around in. Once you walk in there is a sink, directly next to that the toilet, and then the bathtub is only 4 inches from there or so. You can imagine where I am going.

When I give Luke a bath I usually put the lid down on the toilet and sit there reading my book till he is ready to be washed up. So this particular night I was sitting there giving the baby a bottle, reading my book and keeping an eye on Luke as he played in the tub. This was by far the strangest multi-tasking I have done yet. Although I am sure I will find myself in even stranger circumstances down the road.

It all worked out well. Once the baby had her bottle, she was content to watch as I got her brother ready for bed. Then we got her bath and got her ready for bed. Then, wonder of wonders mommy got some “alone” time before she went to bed as well. We all survived another new “multi-tasking experience”.

Wind

Have the elements ever just been so bad you didn’t want to go anywhere? I have had many days like that. When I was single and even before having kids I could usually stay home if it was raining hard or snowing or just nasty outside. With young kids you would think it would keep you inside more if the weather was bad. But, I find we have so many things to “do” with our children that it can be hard to avoid the elements. Having to take Luke to therapy two to three times a week, puts staying inside when it is bad out very hard.


Many weeks we have somewhere we have to go at least four days out of the week, between therapy and doctor appointments the weeks fill up fast. During the winter we braved out the day after a snow storm, and about 90% of the Fridays (when we always have therapy) there was rain. It wasn’t always a huge storm, but the OT therapist we see always jokes with us about it. “Oh, its raining…Luke must be coming today”. So far in 2010, it has reduced from 90% to about 50% on Fridays…hopefully that continues.

To understand our most recent “adventure with the elements” you have to understand that where we live it is pretty flat. When I say “flat” I mean FLAT. You can see for miles and miles, especially where we take Luke to therapy. There are hardly any buildings either, so when the wind picks up you feel it.

A few weeks ago the wind was so bad when we got to therapy that when I parked the car, it was rocking with the wind. Then, when I went to open my door…I felt like I was pushing against some sort of weight machine or a person who weighs 300 pounds! Once I finally got out of the car, I barely cleared the door when it slammed itself shut!! Then I had to get Luke out, luckily I didn’t need to bring our baby girl that day as well. I had to put my body between Luke and the door to keep it open, which allowed the wind to ram the door into me over and over. After finally getting him out of the car and barely clearing his slamming door I got his walker situated, which the wind kept trying to pick up, and we tried walking into the building. Luke was literally being caught by the wind and being pushed backwards, so I got behind him and pushed him up the ramp and then into the building.

Now, we when we left therapy I was hoping the wind had died down…but if anything I think it picked up. Once we got out of the building, a bag of thickener the therapist gave me (which had to weight at least 1.5 pounds) flew out of the diaper bag. When I bent to get it, Luke got caught by the wind at the same time and took a nose dive to the sidewalk!! Poor guy! His momma abandoned him for a pack of thickener!! He cried of course, but I picked him up and helped him finish walking with this walker to the car. Only this time instead of him needing me to help push him into the wind, I had to hold onto his shirt to slow him down since the wind was pushing him!!

Then I had to wrestle with the car doors again while keeping Luke upright, which was fun. Once we were both in the car and safe from the wind, except the rocking of the car, I noticed he had road rash on his forearm. I felt so bad, but Luke seemed to be fine. He stopped crying right after I picked him up and started walking again.

I had to wait till we got home to clean his “war wound”, which he didn’t like. Imagine that!! But, we survived another day against the elements.