They Never Grow Up

I was running errands with two of my 17 year olds this afternoon.  We stopped at McDonalds to get something to eat.  From the passenger’s seat came a small voice, “Can I have a Star Wars toy, Mom?”

I turned to the speaker and said, “…and two Star Wars toys, please.” 

Then I asked the “child” in the back seat if he wanted one.  “No, Mom.” 

You see, I knew if I came home with one for the kid in the car, the one at home would pout all evening.  Not gonna live with that. 

They never grow up.

She Wants What? Volume II

Outrageous requests from patients continue to amaze me.  On the doctor’s web site I hang out on called “Sermo” we call this entitlement-iasis.  We physicians consider requests not related to the medical care that is currently being rendered to be patient’s entitlementiasis.

Here’s a recent example:

I have a young patient (for me, this is someone still attending the public school system) who I haven’t seen for more than 6 months.  Evidently, Lazy Mom has let Cramp Girl stay home from school more than the school system allows.  Lazy Mom is now in trouble.  She is being charged with truancy.  This may actually require a civil penalty through the court. 

Has Lazy Mom notified me at any time that Cramp Girl, who is in high school, has stayed home from school?  No, she has not.  She called the other day wanting notes for multiple dates over the last 4 months.  These dates were for the condition I was treating Cramp Girl for.  She did not tell me at any point that Cramp Girl was not well enough to go to school.  I would have seen her in the office and adjusted her medication.

Lazy Mom is also saying that Cramp Girl was out for a school trip, a day her sister couldn’t drive her to school, a day the electricity was off at her house, a day she had a stomach virus…..

I personally send my kids to school too much.  They tell me so frequently.  I figure that they don’t know they are sick at 6:30 in the morning.  If the school sends them home, then they are sick.  It works for me.  But education is a priority for me.  My kids are in the honor society, on the honor roll, etc. 

No note for Lazy Mom.  Cramp Girl needs to go to school.  How else is she going to get an education?  How else is she going to get a work ethic?  Oh, I forgot, Lazy Mom is on disability.  I guess that’s what she’s trying to teach Cramp Girl.

Grandchildren and other little ones who don’t go home with you

Family gatherings are fun, especially when there are little ones there.  They are sooo cute.  The best part, at my age, is that the little ones do NOT belong to me, and I do NOT have to take them home.

My niece has a daughter who is not quite a year old.  She is great to watch.  She reminds me of all the things my kids did at that age.  Lots of falling on her (well padded) bottom.  She cruises the furniture but doesn’t walk quite yet.  She discovers new things and gets that wonderful grin on her face.  Her giggle makes everyone in the room light up, too.  I said I understand why there are so many laughing baby videos on YouTube. 

She is in that “Mommy adhesive” phase right now.  That’s too bad, because I would have loved a cuddle.  Oh, well.  Maybe when she gets a little bigger and gets to know me better, I’ll get a few hugs.  I did get some wonderful smiles today, though. 

Just don’t call me great-auntie, ‘kay?

Season of Giving

The holiday season has been commercialized so much recently.  Little children always made their “lists”.  They wait for Santa, Saint Nicholas or whoever the gift giver is in their culture.  The day and the tradition may vary, but the idea is the same.

In days of old, when I was young, we also thought about giving to others.  The holiday season should be a season of renewal and support for others.  The birth of the baby who started all of this was supposed to be heaven’s gift to humankind. 

I remember making cards and ornaments in school to give to Mom and Dad.  My Mom still had many of these up until she died.  Kids – Moms and Dads treasure those things you make, because they are made with innocence and love.  The glitter and glue may be clumpy, and the macaroni may be stuck on at funny angles, but that’s what makes them special.

We have a “mitten tree” at our church.  We put scarves and mittens on it for those who don’t have things to keep them warm.  It’s a good time to think of your local food pantry, women’s shelter, children’s shelter, soup kitchen or other location where people who are having trouble with food or clothing go for help. 

It’s also important to remember this feeling throughout the year.  The need doesn’t stop because the holidays are over.  It just seems to be a little less visible.  Keep up with those “random acts of kindness” throughout the year. 

I’ll try to tell you periodically what I’ve done or seen.  You will probably find those stories under “Random Acts of ‘It’s Not My Job’”.  Here’s one:

http://dr-lasermed.blogspot.com/2011/11/random-acts-of-its-not-my-job.html

Your stories appreciated. 

 

Vaccinate YOUR Kid, or Keep Him Away from Mine

I get really tired of hearing parents talk about not vaccinating their children.  They have all kinds of issues with the schedule of vaccinations, the number of vaccinations, what’s in the vaccinations, or who knows what else about it.  My theory about that is:

GET OVER IT! Or, if you choose, take your children and live with all the other parents that feel the same way.  But don’t live where my children, my parents and I live. 

Vaccines were developed to protect us from some really nasty diseases.  Fortunately, they aren’t around much anymore.  Many of them still were when I was a child.  Remember, I have told you I am a very old person.  It’s true.  I had the chicken pox when I was about 4 or 5.  It was awful.  I can still remember.  I also had the Mumps and the German measles.  There were no vaccines for those when I was little. 

We used to worry about stuff like (partial list):

1.     Brain damage from chicken pox (Varicella Zoster), Pertussis, German measles, Hib

2.     Paralysis from Polio

3.     Sterility from Mumps

4.     Birth defects from Rubella (German measles) and other viruses

5.     Liver Cancer from Hepatitis B

6.     Cervical Cancer and Throat Cancer from HPV

7.     Chronic Pain from Shingles (same virus as Chicken Pox – Varicella Zoster)

8.     Death from measles, tetanus, Pertussis, Hib or the flu (influenza).

With vaccines, we have managed to almost completely eliminate most of these problems.  This does require that healthy individuals are vaccinated. 

Some people cannot be vaccinated.  They are immune compromised from cancer or other problems.  If your unvaccinated child gets one of those diseases and goes near one of those people, you may very well be signing their death certificate.  Are you really prepared to be responsible for people dying because you didn’t want your child to have a shot?

We get flu shots at my house every year.  One of my sons has asthma.  The year there was a shortage, he was the only one that got the vaccine.  We all still managed to get sick.  The virus was everywhere in the community.  My son wasn’t ill enough to stay home from school, but coughed enough to vomit at least once a day in school.  He would then get his mucus plug out, and go on about his business.  For some reason this seemed to disturb his teachers!!!!!  Since he always does this when he has a respiratory virus, it didn’t bother me!

My kids were also vaccinated as infants for Chicken Pox.  When they were about four, one of the teachers at their pre-school got the disease and exposed the entire school.  Those who were unvaccinated got to be miserable.  One of my kids had six red spots that lasted a couple of days.  He had no fever, and he didn’t feel bad.  They still made him stay home until the spots were gone. 

So, if you want your kids to be at risk, fine.  Just keep them away from my kids.

Parenting Triplet Babies – 2

Feeding Time

I had a pediatrician who made the comment about one of my children: “If he doesn’t want to eat, don’t feed him.”  I believe the doc was implying that my child was overweight.

My babies started out a bit on the scrawny side, at about 4 ½ pounds each, and 18 ½ inches long.  They were 6 weeks early, but did well.  Once they figured out how to eat (a common problem with preemies), they haven’t stopped.

I NEVER played those “airplane” games, or any other games with my kids once they had learned to eat.  I took home one of my exam stools from my office.  I lined the boys up in their high chairs.  I had one bowl and one spoon. 

Whoever was on the left got the first spoonful.  I moved down the line.  By the time I got to the end, the first guy was ready again.  When the mouth didn’t open, I figured the little “monkey” – er – “angel” was finished eating, and skipped him.  When no more mouths opened, we were done.  Mouths and fingers got washed, they got down and we went on to the next thing.

I guess you can imagine the look on my face when the pediatrician said what he said.  Force feed a child?  Who on earth had time for that????????  What was he thinking?  I believe my jaw hit the floor!  It still makes my brain hurt.

I was never so happy as when they figured out how to hold a spoon or hit their mouths with those Cheerios!

Batteries

Mr. Impatient has an anger issue

Last night we had a major problem at my house:  we ran out of AA batteries. 

Mr. Impatient needed new batteries for the headphones for his game system.  He could only find one AA battery.  He needed two.  For some reason, this really upset him.  He has rechargeable batteries, but nobody knew where they were.  Of course, they were not in the charger.

Nobody told me that we were low on batteries last week when we made the run to the big box store.  I don’t mind buying them, but I have to know that we need them.  It turns out we are out of AAA batteries also.  I checked the drawer in the refrigerator where we keep them.  All we had were 9 V and D.  (Someone told me that batteries last longer if you store them in the refrigerator.  My children always thought you needed cold batteries to replace a used up one when they were little!)

Mr. Impatient isn’t very good at problem solving when he is busy having one of his “anger issues”.  I suggested that we take the battery out of his computer mouse and use that one until Dad could get one on the way home from his meeting.  So he had two, and headed back upstairs.  Next thing I hear is a loud swear word (!!!) and something being thrown down the hall. 

Mommy mode kicked in.  “All three names” get down here!  We had time out on the steps, a long discussion about “anger issues”, not using bad words, and we don’t throw things when we are having anger issues.  We did some breathing and calming down. 

Dad came home with batteries, and I promise to buy a bunch today. 

Being a Mom can be such fun.

Kangaroo care

Something I learned today

I read an interesting article today while doing “continuing medical education” (CME).  I just wanted to share this one.  They studied kangaroo care and whether it helped reduce pain for procedures in premature infants.  Evidently they already know it works for term infants.  They also studied whether Moms or Dads worked better.

For those of you who don’t know, kangaroo care is a method of caring for infants involving skin to skin contact between the baby and the care giver.  The baby has a diaper on and is placed against Mom or Dad’s skin.  It is supposed to help with bonding, breast feeding, growth and development.

There were a lot of technical details in the article I read.  I won’t bore you with them.  If you want, you can refer to the article. The study was done by Johnston and colleagues and is reported in the September issue of the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine. 

The results were interesting.  All the babies were comforted by being with their parents during the procedure.  The procedure was having their blood drawn from their foot – a “heel stick”.  They cried less, their heart rates went up less, and the heart rate returned to normal faster.  FYI, Moms did just a little bit better than Dads. 

I was impressed that we are studying ways to make painful procedures more comfortable for the little ones.  Aww….

You learn something new every day.

There’s a Fist Fight in the Back Seat of My Car

I have an autistic child and am just fed up!

One weekend my autistic son, Mr. Impatient, lost something that was very important to him. (The memory cards to his Play Station). We all looked everywhere. I spent a couple of hours searching his room, as did both of his brothers, with no luck. He became progressively more agitated. We knew they were somewhere in the house. I did not want to purchase new ones due to cost and to teach him responsibility.

I had tried every technique that I knew to calm him down, and had finally promised that we would go Monday after school and purchase new cards, since we had spent two days looking for the old ones. (Which, BTW, were found two hours after the new ones were purchased.)

Monday morning, on the way to school, he continued to perseverate about this. Finally, he turned to his brother, Three Speed, and socked him in the face, causing a nose bleed. This occurred just as we turned into the school parking lot. Three Speed retaliated. Fist fight in the back seat. Note that boys are 16, each well over 200 pounds and over 5 foot 10”.

We so very rarely have physical interactions like this. Usually I can see the "mad face" and can head him off at the pass. We had been dealing with this all weekend, and I had promised to buy new memory cards after school.

I can't see their faces when I am driving. If I had thought he was going to go ballistic, I would have put him in the front seat. He can't hurt the others when he is seat belted in the front seat. And he won't hurt me.

Do you have days when you are just fed up with your kids? I wanted to just run away!  I didn’t, but I cried all the way to the office.

I know I'm not a failure, but some days......

Most days are soooo much better. This was just a really, really bad one.

We have all learned coping and redirecting techniques over the years. I just really missed on this one. And usually the fist fights don't happen in the back seat. I usually don't drive up to school with a kid with a nosebleed.

Just sometimes I hate autism.  It bites that we have to live with it.

Not that I don't love them. I really, really do. But it's lots and lots of work. It’s much more work than I ever thought it would be. 

Adventures in Parenting Triplet Babies 1

The Saga of Baby Shots and Tylenol

One day when the boys were tiny, we took them to the pediatrician for shots.  My smart, experienced younger sister had told me that it was a good idea to give them Tylenol before they get shots.  She would probably want me to add that she is also elegant, beautiful and a whole bunch of other things, but I’ll stick to smart and experienced.  Love ya, G.

 I listened to her for two very good reasons.  First, she had three children of her own.  Second, and not necessarily more important, she is a registered nurse. 

So, I gave them all Tylenol before the pediatrician’s office, and off we went.  Now, here’s where I made my mistake.  I told the pediatrician what I had done.  He told me that you don’t know whether or not the babies are going to have a reaction to their shots, and shouldn’t give them anything before hand.  Soooooooo….

I let the Tylenol wear off.  This was after my husband left to go to the grocery store or someplace equally selfish.  I say this because, while he was gone, I found out that my children did, indeed, need Tylenol round the clock for about twenty four hours after shots.  It wore off at the same time for all three babies.  I had three screaming infants waiting for their new dose of Tylenol to hit. 

I was in tears, rocking them, singing to them, and promised that I would never listen to that evil pediatrician again when it came to giving them the lovely purple medicine that made them feel good. 

I learned lots of lessons that day.

What parents should know

Sometimes other people say it well.  Besides, this was the last day of band practice, and I had a performance to attend.  Go Eagles Band.  This article, entitled "What I wish parents knew" is great advice for parents with school age kids.

http://shine.yahoo.com/event/momentsofmotherhood/quot-what-i-wish-parents-knew-quot-doctors-teachers-therapists-and-more-weigh-in-2521640/