Sunday, June 27, 2010
Summer Fun
Last night we went to a Lincoln Military Housing event. I can't remember what it was called, but it had a Hawaiian theme. It was really fun! The kids loved it! Here are a ton of pictures that I took, since I haven't posted pictures in a while.
Judge Not
In relief society today we had a lesson on not judging others. The teacher was a woman, probably around 60 years old. She has no children. Now I'll admit, I don't like this lady. There have been times before that I have not gone to class just because she is teaching. She makes a lot of "Holier than Thou" type comments both when she is teaching, and also when others are teaching. One time a few months ago we were sitting in front of her in sacrament meeting when the speaker (a mother with two autistic children) was talking about raising special needs children in the gospel, and this woman said (rather loudly), "If you can't control your kids then don't take them out in public." Plus there have been many times that she has flat out glared at me when Lincoln has been acting up, like even after I made eye contact, she just kept on glaring.
So anyway, back to the lesson. She said that she was going to give us three "provocative" situations and she wanted us to tell her how we would react. These are the three situations that she used:
1. There is a member of your ward who you know has committed a serious sin.
2. A mother who can't or won't control her children and they become a distraction during church.
3. You see a ward member out to dinner drinking a glass of wine.
I didn't hear the rest of the lesson.
It took all of my willpower to not raise my hand and say that I was extremely offended that she would place a mother who's children and being CHILDREN right up there with major sins. Last time I checked it was not a sin for your children to make noise during church. They are children! We are one of the few religions where children go to the main service with parents. Most churches offer nursery during that time, but I choose to believe that there is a reason that our church includes children during the sacrament meeting. I've always thought that it was expected that occasionally children will cry, shout, or otherwise make noise, and that this was part of them learning to be reverent. I certainly wouldn't think that it is a SIN on the mother's part if her children dare to make a noise.
Maybe I'm being oversensitive. I often feel inadequate in my parenting, especially when it comes to Lincoln. I have, in the past, chosen not to go to church because I feel judged by his behavior. I do often sit in the hall and completely avoid sacrament meeting because I know that he is not capable (and not through some failure in my parenting, but because he is a 3-year-old with special needs) of sitting still and not making noise for an hour.
Or maybe, I just need to realize that the lesson was on not judging. And while that woman may be judging me, maybe I am judging her as well. I have "judged" that she is pretentious and mean. Maybe she is just ignorant, and that is not my place to judge. Hopefully someday she will somehow come to inherit a set of 2-year-old twins with lots of energy, and then she will come to understand just how wrong she is. Or maybe not, but still it isn't my place to judge her only to forgiver her for offending me.
So anyway, back to the lesson. She said that she was going to give us three "provocative" situations and she wanted us to tell her how we would react. These are the three situations that she used:
1. There is a member of your ward who you know has committed a serious sin.
2. A mother who can't or won't control her children and they become a distraction during church.
3. You see a ward member out to dinner drinking a glass of wine.
I didn't hear the rest of the lesson.
It took all of my willpower to not raise my hand and say that I was extremely offended that she would place a mother who's children and being CHILDREN right up there with major sins. Last time I checked it was not a sin for your children to make noise during church. They are children! We are one of the few religions where children go to the main service with parents. Most churches offer nursery during that time, but I choose to believe that there is a reason that our church includes children during the sacrament meeting. I've always thought that it was expected that occasionally children will cry, shout, or otherwise make noise, and that this was part of them learning to be reverent. I certainly wouldn't think that it is a SIN on the mother's part if her children dare to make a noise.
Maybe I'm being oversensitive. I often feel inadequate in my parenting, especially when it comes to Lincoln. I have, in the past, chosen not to go to church because I feel judged by his behavior. I do often sit in the hall and completely avoid sacrament meeting because I know that he is not capable (and not through some failure in my parenting, but because he is a 3-year-old with special needs) of sitting still and not making noise for an hour.
Or maybe, I just need to realize that the lesson was on not judging. And while that woman may be judging me, maybe I am judging her as well. I have "judged" that she is pretentious and mean. Maybe she is just ignorant, and that is not my place to judge. Hopefully someday she will somehow come to inherit a set of 2-year-old twins with lots of energy, and then she will come to understand just how wrong she is. Or maybe not, but still it isn't my place to judge her only to forgiver her for offending me.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
The Difference Between Girls and Boys
So we're driving down the road tonight, and the conversation turned to hockey. Lincoln said, "jiberish, jiberish hockey, jiberish jiberish KICK YOUR BUTT!" Then Savannah responded with, "Well I'll get more cheerleaders for my them, then we will HAVE to win."
Yep, that pretty much sums it up.
Yep, that pretty much sums it up.
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Stress
I have officially become a blog slacker. I used to be so good at it. Well, the last few weeks have been beyond crazy at our house. It seems like every military wife I know says that every deployment has to have its crisis. Well hopefully ours is over with. I guess it was two weeks ago now, that one afternoon I decided to take the kids to the housing pool down the street after Savannah got home from school. It was a nice day, but shockingly we were the only ones there. The kids were both playing in the pool having a great time, and I was sitting at the edge of the pool talking to them while they played. I heard my phone signaling that I had a text message, and in what was not my greatest parenting moment, left the kids in the pool while I walked about 5 feet away to check the message and respond. When I turned around I saw that Lincoln had taken his floaties off and was floating in the pool. Now he was face up, and for a second I thought that he was just floating. Then I noticed that his lips were blue and his eyes were rolled back in his head and I panicked! As I was running to the side of the pool screaming, Savannah grabbed him. It took me probably 2 seconds to get to him and pull him out of the water, and to my grateful astonishment, he was breathing. Breathing, but limp and unresponsive with his eyes still rolled back and blue lips. Looking back, I must have been in shock because I just stood there not knowing what to do. Finally I took him over to the chairs and sat him on my lap and patted/rubbed his back while I screamed at him to cough. After what seemed like forever he finally started coughing and threw up three times. I still didn't know what to do. I decided that since it had been a while and he was still not responsive we needed to take him to the ER. (Looking back I have no clue why I didn't call 911 as soon as I pulled him out, but I really didn't even think of it)
So I rushed him to the ER at the closest hospital, which happened to be a children's hospital. I figured out that things weren't looking good when they took him back ahead of the child in front of us who had a compound fractured arm and several teeth knocked out, and the child behind us who had cranial swelling. They took his vitals, and they looked good. Chest x-rays showed "cloudy areas" which they told me meant that he had had water in his lungs, but it was mostly out now. Then they told me that he needed to be admitted overnight, but that my insurance would only cover an overnight stay at the military hospital. Lincoln would be going on an ambulance ride, and since I had driven him to the hospital with Savannah he was going to have to go alone.
So we waited until the ambulance came to get him, and then Savannah and I went home, changed out of our swimming suits, packed overnight bags, Savannah went to our friend Shane's house for the night and I headed to the other hospital. By the time I got there he was all settled in and had four doctors waiting for me so they could examine him and question me. They assured me that he looked great and we would be going home first thing in the morning. By the time they finished with him it was 1 am, and we were both exhausted. He went right to sleep, and I tried to sleep, but it was difficult because his alarms went off every 5-10 minutes indicating that his respiratory rate was too high. At 6 am they came to get him to repeat the x-rays. Seven doctors/residents came around 8 am and told us that we should be leaving very soon. A few minutes later our roommates left. At noon they finally came back and told us that they had decided to do an EKG and they wanted him to see a cardiologist before we left. At three a doctor came in and explained to me that his QT level was borderline on his EKG and they were concerned about that. A few minutes later a pediatric cardiologist and a regular cardiologist came in. After I answered what seemed like a million questions and a brief exam of Lincoln they decided that they weren't worried about his heart. Half an hour later we were on our way home with a clean bill of health an a follow up appointment with his pediatrician for a week later. It was mentioned several times by almost every doctor that saw him that they thought he could have had a seizure, but they just wanted me to watch him.
So we went home, thanked God that he was OK and went on with our lives. Lincoln seemed VERY tired for the next week, and had a ton of potty accidents but otherwise seemed fine. We almost didn't go to his follow up appointment because he was tired and I was ready to go back to normal life. We went anyway. When the doctor came in the room she said that she had read the hospital report, but she wanted me to tell her again what happened. I got to the point where I pulled him out of the pool, when she interrupted and said, "I think he had a seizure. I don't know why they didn't look into that more at the hospital." So she put in an urgent referral for an EEG, and also asked us to repeat his EKG in 6 months since it was borderline abnormal. She also said that she believed that she believes that when Lincoln stares off in space (which he has always done) and when he has his accidents that he may be having mini seizures. I left the appointment, went home and cried. Poor Lincoln already has enough issues in his little life, did we really need to add seizures? The next day I was talking to the other moms in the waiting room at his therapy and was surprised to learn that many other kids with SPD also have seizures.
We got a call Thursday afternoon that his EEG would be on Friday morning. I was told to keep him up until at least midnight that night and to wake him up at 4 am since he needed to be sleep deprived for the test. That night was torture! We finally arrived at his appointment at 8 am, and he was so tired he was to the point of being completely hyper. It took them 45 minutes to get him to sleep. But he did well with the test, and we were soon on our way back home with no answers. Today, 5 days later, we finally got a call with the results... his EEG was completely normal! But his pediatrician is still concerned and wants him to see a neurologist. I'm fine with that, I've always said that it is better to have things checked out and know they are fine than to just ignore them and hope they are. So sometime soon we will be doing that.
In the meantime in the past two week I had a Scentsy party, Lincoln had his IEP evaluation last week which was almost three hours long and his most important developmental evaluation to date, Savannah has been sick, and we are house hunting. I'm ready for the calm now. Oh, and somewhere between the pool and the second hospital I lost my camera. I know I had it at the pool because I was taking pictures. I know I did not have it when I was searching for my valet ticket when leaving the first hospital. It was not turned in to the lost and found at the pool or the hospital.
So I rushed him to the ER at the closest hospital, which happened to be a children's hospital. I figured out that things weren't looking good when they took him back ahead of the child in front of us who had a compound fractured arm and several teeth knocked out, and the child behind us who had cranial swelling. They took his vitals, and they looked good. Chest x-rays showed "cloudy areas" which they told me meant that he had had water in his lungs, but it was mostly out now. Then they told me that he needed to be admitted overnight, but that my insurance would only cover an overnight stay at the military hospital. Lincoln would be going on an ambulance ride, and since I had driven him to the hospital with Savannah he was going to have to go alone.
So we waited until the ambulance came to get him, and then Savannah and I went home, changed out of our swimming suits, packed overnight bags, Savannah went to our friend Shane's house for the night and I headed to the other hospital. By the time I got there he was all settled in and had four doctors waiting for me so they could examine him and question me. They assured me that he looked great and we would be going home first thing in the morning. By the time they finished with him it was 1 am, and we were both exhausted. He went right to sleep, and I tried to sleep, but it was difficult because his alarms went off every 5-10 minutes indicating that his respiratory rate was too high. At 6 am they came to get him to repeat the x-rays. Seven doctors/residents came around 8 am and told us that we should be leaving very soon. A few minutes later our roommates left. At noon they finally came back and told us that they had decided to do an EKG and they wanted him to see a cardiologist before we left. At three a doctor came in and explained to me that his QT level was borderline on his EKG and they were concerned about that. A few minutes later a pediatric cardiologist and a regular cardiologist came in. After I answered what seemed like a million questions and a brief exam of Lincoln they decided that they weren't worried about his heart. Half an hour later we were on our way home with a clean bill of health an a follow up appointment with his pediatrician for a week later. It was mentioned several times by almost every doctor that saw him that they thought he could have had a seizure, but they just wanted me to watch him.
So we went home, thanked God that he was OK and went on with our lives. Lincoln seemed VERY tired for the next week, and had a ton of potty accidents but otherwise seemed fine. We almost didn't go to his follow up appointment because he was tired and I was ready to go back to normal life. We went anyway. When the doctor came in the room she said that she had read the hospital report, but she wanted me to tell her again what happened. I got to the point where I pulled him out of the pool, when she interrupted and said, "I think he had a seizure. I don't know why they didn't look into that more at the hospital." So she put in an urgent referral for an EEG, and also asked us to repeat his EKG in 6 months since it was borderline abnormal. She also said that she believed that she believes that when Lincoln stares off in space (which he has always done) and when he has his accidents that he may be having mini seizures. I left the appointment, went home and cried. Poor Lincoln already has enough issues in his little life, did we really need to add seizures? The next day I was talking to the other moms in the waiting room at his therapy and was surprised to learn that many other kids with SPD also have seizures.
We got a call Thursday afternoon that his EEG would be on Friday morning. I was told to keep him up until at least midnight that night and to wake him up at 4 am since he needed to be sleep deprived for the test. That night was torture! We finally arrived at his appointment at 8 am, and he was so tired he was to the point of being completely hyper. It took them 45 minutes to get him to sleep. But he did well with the test, and we were soon on our way back home with no answers. Today, 5 days later, we finally got a call with the results... his EEG was completely normal! But his pediatrician is still concerned and wants him to see a neurologist. I'm fine with that, I've always said that it is better to have things checked out and know they are fine than to just ignore them and hope they are. So sometime soon we will be doing that.
In the meantime in the past two week I had a Scentsy party, Lincoln had his IEP evaluation last week which was almost three hours long and his most important developmental evaluation to date, Savannah has been sick, and we are house hunting. I'm ready for the calm now. Oh, and somewhere between the pool and the second hospital I lost my camera. I know I had it at the pool because I was taking pictures. I know I did not have it when I was searching for my valet ticket when leaving the first hospital. It was not turned in to the lost and found at the pool or the hospital.
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