Oh, what do you do in the summertime...

Oh, what do you do in the summertime, when all the world is green? Do you swim in a pool, to keep yourself cool, or swing in a tree up high? Is that what you do? So do I!

But not Peter. When it's over 90 degrees outside he prefers to wear fleece footed jammies with snowmen. Obviously, this was not a battle I won (I'm definitely on a losing streak lately). Thank goodness I have A/C to deal with my son's fashion sense.

U Can't Touch This

In general, 3rd grade girls are not paragons of coolness (especially 3rd graders with shamu-sized hair sprayed bangs). But I remember being at a friend's birthday party when I was 9 and thinking I was pretty cool. Now why would I think that? Well, I was dancing to MC Hammer's "U Can't Touch This" and you can't get much cooler than that, right? There we were a bunch of dorky 8 and 9 year old girls bopping around to an older sister's mix tape and then MC Hammer came on. Wow, I loved that song.

Now, nineteen years later, Peter loves that song! For Father's Day my brother Kyle and his wife Renae gave Ryan one of those nifty Hallmark cards that plays a song when it is opened. Peter immediately fell in love with card the first time he opened it and it played "U Can't Touch This." He carries it around the house, opens it and proceeds to bust a move. He wags his head, spins in a circle, pops up from his knees, stamps the ground, and wiggles his shoulders. Thanks to his almost hourly performances this week I've learned a couple of things: 1. My 2-year-old is more coordinated than me; 2. He's way cooler now than I was as a 3rd grader (at least he thinks he is).

That Kind of Mom

One day last week Peter decided he wanted to go outside after eating. As I watched him play in the backyard I had a horrible realization: I'm "that" kind of mom! You know the kind that lets her kids run around half-naked in filthy clothes with slimy faces and sticky hands. So I apologize to all those mothers I've observed over the years with unkempt and questionably dressed children. I'm sorry I thought bad things about you and now I understand. Sometimes you just have to let your kid run around with no pants, an oatmeal dotted shirt, snow boots (Peter INSISTED he wear those), sticky peach juice hands, snot-covered face and hair containing remnants of the last meal.

Yes, Peter stopped himself when he noticed the water on the slide. I guess he thought he was already dirty enough.

The Backfiring of Handy Manny

Until about 2 months ago, Peter has not been a fan of TV; rarely anything would grab his attention for longer than 30 seconds (with the exception of Olympic diving). Generally he would ignore the TV completely and I was happy with that...until recently. Peter is becoming increasingly curious and clingy, meaning I cannot do ANYTHING without him being right there with me. While I love my son and appreciate his "help" when cleaning, I really wanted just 20 minutes a day to myself to do fun things like wash dishes or scrub the kitchen floor (I lead a very exciting life).

At the end of February I started Cartoon Campaign 2009. My idea was that if I could get Peter to watch 1 episode of some cartoon in the morning I could have that blissful freedom for at least a short while. So I started poking around the Disney Channel and Nickelodeon for possible candidates. After weighing the pros and cons of the various shows (ie. animation style, colors, characters, age appropriateness, music, storylines, level of annoyingness, etc.) I narrowed it down to 2 shows: Handy Manny on Disney and The Backyardigans on Nickelodeon (yes, I overthink things!). So everyday after breakfast I would sit with Peter on my lap and watch one of those shows. At first we would only watch a few minutes slowly increasing the time daily. Soon Peter showed a definite preference for Handy Manny and would watch an entire episode with me (each episode is composed of two 12 minute segments). Then for a week I sat next to him as Peter watched Hanny Manny, eventually working my way farther from him each day. After about a month of this conditioning, Peter finally would watch 24 minutes of TV everyday by himself. SUCCESS!

Unfortunately, my plan was a little too successful. Now Peter is absolutely obsessed with Handy Manny. He has turned the sign for "more" into the Handy Manny sign. Now all day I rebuff his desperate attempts to watch the show all day (I'm convinced he would watch 3 hours straight if I let him). And of course I exacerbated the problem by buying Peter a Handy Manny toolset. My plan has completely backfired on me; I think I would rather give away my 24 minutes of me time each day to not have to listen and watch Peter beg all day for his beloved Handy Manny. I guess this is what I get for trying to control my son.

Peter watching Handy Manny with his toolbox.

Make Up Your Mind!

I love winter with its quiet snowy days and chilly nights. And I love spring with its mild sunny weather and bright botanical pageantry. But I struggle with the "in between" weather. Cold and rainy one day, blistering hot the next. 50 mph winds on Thursday, suffocatingly still air on Friday, blizzard on Saturday. Make up your freakin' mind! And to think my mom thought I was indecisive when trying to pick out what to wear to school every morning. My fickle nature seems downright stable and predictable when compared to mother nature. It's very frustrating trying to explain to a 2 year old that we can't go outside because its subarctic out there when the previous day we spent 23 hours on the swingset. In fact the only good thing about the ever changing weather is that Peter can continue to wear his adorable hat from Oma P. I can't help but smile when I see Peter running around with it on.

And to You February I Bid Adieu

When I became pregnant, I arrogantly and naively vowed that I would not be one of those mothers that puts her kids in so many activities that they have a hard time finding an open slot in their schedules to brush their teeth. I was going to smartly sift through the available extra-curricular offerings allowing my children to expand and develop their talents (and create new ones) and still have a fun and carefree childhood. I knew at some point I would devolve into the proverbial chauffeur/personal assistant for my children. I just always expected it to happen when I had multiple older kids—not a single 2-year-old!

Every Monday and Wednesday Peter has preschool. Unfortunately the preschool is at his EI center (Early Intervention) which is a 20 to 25 minute drive (I spend a lot of time in the car on those days). On Fridays he has a Kindermusik class at EI. Peter is also visited by an EI Specialist twice a month and a SLP (Speech Language Pathologist) once a month. Those things combined with the daily speech therapy and autism therapy we do at home keep Peter and I comfortably active.

By nature I am not one of those busy people who likes/has to be doing something all the time, so it was with horror that I looked at my calendar for the month of February. Thanks to Peter, I had at least one thing scheduled for every weekday in February except one. In addition to the things above we had extra events that crowded our calender. We're starting a new autism therapy with Peter that required a couple of home visits from a therapist. We updated Peter's EI goals so we had to meet with our EI Family Advocate and EI Specialist. When you put those all together with our regular activities and add in doctor's appointments for Peter and me, we were extra busy in February. My calendar has more than a few blanks for March and I'm practically giddy about it.

My Chunky Monkey

Peter's always been a little guy. He entered this world weighing 4 lbs. 15 oz. and measuring 17 1/2 inches, putting him in the 1st percentile on both the weight and height growth charts. He was little Peter (a name I'm sure he won't appreciate when he's older). For the first 9 months of his life Peter fluctuated between the 1st and 2nd percentiles. He finally hit a growth spurt and celebrated his 1st birthday by landing a spot in the 14th percentile for weight and the 5th for height. He continued to grow slowly and by his 18 month doctor appointment he slid into the 15th percentile for weight and jumped to the 18th for height.

Today Peter had his 2 Year checkup. I knew he had grown, but I was anxious to see where he landed on the charts. While Peter eats a large variety of foods he usually eats a very small quantity; somedays I think a caterpillar could beat him in an eating contest (he must get that from me). So you can imagine my surprise and delight when Peter's pediatrician told me that I could move Peter from whole milk to 2%. He then showed me that Peter had leapt into the 48th percentile for weight and the 27th for height. WHAT! Where did my little Peter go? I guess he's been making more hidden trips into the pantry than I was aware of.

Pete's Party

Peter didn't like his party hat or his family singing Happy Birthday to him

A 2-year-old doesn't understand what a birthday party is, let alone a birthday. But Ryan and I think that any photographic proof/ammunition we can produce right now to disprove Peter's almost certain to happen teenage rant of "You never did anything for me," is enough reason to have a birthday party for a 2-year-old. So we had a small family party a couple of weeks ago (it's taken me this long to finally go through the photos).

My mom generously offered to bake the birthday cake and I smartly and generously accepted her offer (it's not nice to invite people to a party and serve them a cake I baked). We discussed possible themes for the cake but were unable to come up with anything. Peter is one of those rare toddlers that is not obsessed with a particular animal/vehicle/cartoon character. Really his dream cake would be 12 mini cupcakes frosted in 6 different colors; he could spend his entire party sorting and lining up the cupcakes. Then my mom and I realized that there is something that Peter loves more than anything: Big Walter! So my mom made an amazing cake of Peter's beloved dog. We were a little worried that he wouldn't want to eat the Big Walter cake but of course he scarfed it down because it was cake.

Peter was a bit confused about everything. And having 10 adults sing Happy Birthday to him was more than he could handle (apparently our singing voices are worse than we thought). But overall I thought it was a success. We were able to spend time with our families, celebrate an adorable little boy, spoil Peter more, and eats lots of cake.

Peter with the real Big Walter and the cake Big Walter

Hmm, maybe this birthday thing isn't so bad

Yummy cake

Why I Want To Be A Kid

Wouldn't it be nice to just go to sleep whenever (and wherever) you felt like it.

Happy Birthday Peter!

My baby is 2 today! Here's a little video celebrating Peter's illustrious life thus far through photos. Enjoy.

When I was putting together this video there was no question of what song to use. "Starlight" by Muse will always be to me Peter's song; whenever I hear it I always think of him and the weeks following his birth. As many of you know Peter had to stay in the hospital for 3 weeks after he was born. Because of this I was pumping my breast milk every 3 hours around the clock. During the first week I often did my middle of the night pumps on the glider in Peter's unused room in an effort to feel closer to him. One night I decided to listen to my iPod while I pumped to keep me awake. As I sat there with one of Peter's blankets around me, "Starlight" came up on shuffle. Even though I had heard the song before and liked it (I did put it on my iPod) this time it was different. Listening to it I felt closer to my little boy who was miles away from me. I just wanted to hold him in my arms and never let go. Since that night whenever I hear "Starlight" I always think of Peter and how much I love him and what he means to me.

Sleep Wars With Screams and Roars

A common sight at our house

A much less common sight (and of course I woke him with the camera!)

Peter has never been a great sleeper but a couple of months ago he declared war on sleep (or on me and Ryan?). His sleep schedule has become as complicated and frustrating as the IRS tax code. Most nights he refuses to go to sleep before 11:30 and then he wakes up multiple times during the night and it's incredibly difficult to get him to go back to sleep (Peter is very good at imitating a roaring lion). I'm tired.

For whatever reason this tiredness seems worse than the tiredness experienced when Peter was a newborn. I think there must be some chemical the brain produces after delivering a baby that enables a woman's body to handle the lack of sleep and physical exhaustion that accompanies a newborn. I just want to know why there isn't a chemical to handle the toddler inducing exhaustion. True I am getting more sleep than when Peter was tiny but I'm also doing a whole lot more. For one thing, a newborn stays in one position while a toddler manages to hit 12,000 positions in less than 5 seconds (why walk when you can run and throw things simultaneously?). Also it's okay to be a bit lazy with a new baby: laundry can pile up (and it does with a spitting up and pooping machine in the house), dirty dishes can take over the kitchen, and meals can consist solely of frozen food. But that phase isn't allowed to last too long (hopefully). However, life and all its chores marches on with a 2-year-old. And another big difference is the public attitude towards fatigue. It's acceptable and even expected for a new mom to be tired. The checker at the grocery store doesn't give you a funny look when you give her your address when she asks for your phone number as long as you have that cute, sleeping baby in the carrier with you. Now, my kid not sleeping is my fault and supposedly no big deal.

But when I'm really honest with myself I realize why I'm more tired now. I've come to the awful realization that this is my life for at least a couple more decades. When I felt like the exhaustion would completely destroy me when Peter was an infant, I was comforted and strengthened by the idea that the tiredness was just a phase and that I would soon be sleeping 8 hours straight every night for the rest of my life. Now I know that I will never sleep an entire night through until I'm old and then I'll probably be up every hour with an overactive bladder and arthritis pains. I'm tired just thinking about it.

Photography Skills

Isn't this an exceptional photo? Okay, I admit that it in no way qualifies as a good photo or even a mediocre one, but I am still incredibly proud of it. Why, you ask? It's the first photo Peter has taken with a camera; not too shabby for a 23 month old. On Friday, Peter was playing on the computer. (No, I haven't converted him to the awesomeness of video games yet. He was literally playing on the turned off computer—moving the mouse around, tapping the keys and pushing buttons on the front of the monitor.) I had stupidly left my camera on the computer desk and of course Peter noticed it. However, I did not notice it until I heard the distinct fake shutter sound on my camera indicating a photo had just been taken. I turned around to find Peter with his finger on the camera and a huge grin on his face. He knew he had just done something cool. So above is the result of Peter's stolen minute with my camera. I think he did an impressive job setting up the shot, creating an interesting composition. Or maybe he just pushed a button (who can resist the siren call of a button?).

First Day of School

Peter started school today. Wait a minute! How old is that kid? He can't possibly be old enough for preschool already! At the suggestion of Peter's doctor, Ryan and I have been thinking for several months about placing Peter in an early preschool but were concerned about finding a quality one that would help Peter with his Austism Spectrum Disorder. Fortunately, the Early Intervention service that helps Peter has an early education center on site. So after discussing it with his EI team we decided to have him go there. So now my little will-be-2-in-February-boy is going to preschool for 5 hours a week. Peter will go 2 hours on Mondays and 3 on Wednesdays.

Young McPetey Had A Farm

Animals are taking over our house. But at least they are small, don't smell or shed, and never pee on the carpet (unlike Peter). Peter's SLP (Speech and Language Pathologist) Gayleen and his EIS (Early Intervention Specialist) Lindsey want me to use animals as part of Peter's daily home therapy. So Peter received several animal themed toys for Christmas. ("Peter NEEDS this Ryan. It's for his therapy; it will really help his Autism.")

One of the cutest toys is a Farm Memory Game by Little Tikes. It's a plastic egg carton with animals and eggs. There are 10 little animals that can be split in half. You separate the bottom from the top, then hide the pieces under the included egg cups. Peter loves this toy. He likes opening the carton, taking apart the eggs, finding the animals and putting them back in the carton (he's still a little too young to match the animals, so we keep them whole). But his favorite thing is to take the animals and line them up on a table. Then he moves them to the coffee table, then a chair, then a bookshelf, then the stairs, then the couch, then back to the table.

One of the most prevalent Autism Spectrum behaviors Peter has is his obsessive need/want to order and line objects up. Several months ago he would literally spend an hour moving 6 bottles of haircare products from one location to another on the second floor. He would carefully move the objects, organize them to his liking then immediately pick them up and start the entire process over. He would melt down if someone tried interrupting his process or moved things out of his order. Most of the time he would "play" with his toys this way unless someone was right there making him play with the toys correctly. Peter's doctor and EIS told Ryan and me that we needed to interrupt and prevent Peter from doing this lining up too much. While it's okay for him to do it occasionally for short periods of time it isn't okay for it to make up most of his solitary play. I've been working really hard since October to distract and redirect Peter when he starts lining things up.

Fortunately, Peter has made a lot of improvement; now most days he only does it once or twice for about 10 minutes. Then I bought those cute Little Tikes animals and the temptation was too much. Peter loves lining those animals up. Oops. I've had to hide them and only bring them out for a short time each day. Peter and I have a fun time moving those animals around. I try to make it more interactive by performing stunningly accurate imitations of animal sounds (except for the bunnny; what noise does a bunny make?) and requiring Peter to point and sign. Now if I could only get Peter to think cleaning and organizing the house is fun...

I'm a BIG Boy Now!

No, I didn't have a special surgery this Christmas (although I would probably get a lot more hits on my blog if I did). Peter is the big boy or at least he and I think so. Although he has been crawling up onto to chairs for months now, he's just realized that he can sit on them like everybody else. Whenever he sees people sitting at a table he thinks he should join them. He scoots to the front of the chair, leans forward, rests his arms and hands on the table and grins with pride (then he makes lame jokes and we are forced to laugh out of politeness...oh, wait that's my dad!). So even though his chin barely rises above the table, I think Peter looks like such a big boy. Where did my baby go?

Too Busy

Due to the Christmas hullabaloo I haven't had much time for blogging (I know, I know, I'm crying too!). Hopefully, I'll post a thorough outline of Christmas soon (try to contain your excitement). In the meantime here's my brief summary:

I celebrated Christmas (unlike Peter, I had pants on most of the time).

I spent time with family (I didn't want to, but apparently Christmas is a "family" holiday and so I was forced to interact with a bunch of enjoyable and funny relatives that I love—totally unfair!).

I cleaned up Christmas morning chaos (how do a handful of presents create mountains of packaging?).

I played with Peter's new toys (having a kid is awesome—I get to play with toys!).

And I fought to save Princess Peach on my new Nintendo DS Lite! (I have the best husband.)

I ♥ Photoshop

Photoshop is the greatest thing ever created (besides Peter). Peter's best smiles for the camera never seem to coincide with a clean face or neutral background. But thanks to Photoshop I can turn this

into this

Now it's ready for grandparents and Christmas present worthy!

Crap!

You know you're a parent when your husband calls to you from upstairs with the words, "Hey, Kristin. Do you want to see the BIGGEST poop ever?" When did my life get so crappy? (I'm sorry, I couldn't resist!) I remember when Ryan and I used to discuss important topics. You know like who has the largest nose in our neighborhood, or why do beans cause gas. Okay, so maybe our conversations weren't always composed of mature topics, contemplative observations, or witty banter, but it is amazing how a having a baby really pitched our conversations into the crapper. Sorry, it's just too easy to make crap jokes—see what parenthood has done to me (if I was honest I would admit that I've always had a fondess for potty humor, now I just have an excuse.) Oh, and Ryan was referring to Peter's poop, just in case you were wondering.

Oops...Don't Play With That

Recently I was going through some boxes to help dejunk and organize my house—not an easy task with a toddler who has his own ideas of where things belong (does anyone else keep their spatulas on a shoe rack?). In one box I found a desktop punching bag I had given Ryan several years ago as a stocking stuffer. If you flick it says 4 different phrases: 1) You're Fired, 2) Make My Day, 3) Back Off, and 4) You Jerk. It's pretty lame even for a $3 gag gift (hence finding it a box). But since Peter doesn't have a clear grasp of what is cool and what is lame yet, he loves it. He's been carrying it around the house for a few days now.

But tonight I robbed my sweet son of his new companion and evidence of poor taste, by throwing it away (yes, I know I'm the one with the poor taste because I'm the adult who actually paid money for it). I just had this awful thought that even though Peter can't talk yet he might somehow bust out with one of those 4 phrases. Wouldn't it be awesome to record in Peter's baby book that his first words were "You Jerk!" Or wouldn't I love to hear him yell "Back off!" to his pediatrician or tell his nursery leader, "You're fired!" Yep, I certainly couldn't let that happen—I must at least retain the appearance of being a good mom.

The Angry Drunk

For over a year Peter's pediatrician and I have been concerned about Peter's language skills. We expected Peter to have delays in several (if not all) developmental areas because he was 5 weeks premature, but his language delays seemed to be more severe than what prematurity could account for. Earlier this year, two separate Speech and Language Pathologists (SLPs)identified Peter as having profound delays in both receptive and expressive language. At 18 months, his language skills were placed at the level of a 4 or 5 month old infant. This delay was one of many factors in Peter being diagnosed with an Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Peter's developmental pediatrician, SLP, and I wondered if part of Peter's severe language delays were caused in part to Auditory Neuropathy. Auditory Neuropathy is a hearing disorder in which sound enters the inner ear normally but the transmission of signals from the inner ear to the brain is impaired. For example, a person with Auditory Neuropathy may be able to hear sounds, but would still have difficulty recognizing spoken words. Sounds may fade in and out for these individuals and seem out of sync. We knew from hearing tests Peter had at birth and at 15 months that he was not hearing impaired. However, he continued to show signs of a hearing loss including severe to profound delays in language, poor speech perception, hypo and hypersensitivities to noise, and difficulties in getting his attention (although in recent months he's been getting better in all these areas).

Fortunately, it is very easy to test for Auditory Neuropathy. A diagnosis requires a normal or positive OAE (that's the simple test they usually give newborns in the hospital) and an abnormal Auditory Brainstem Response (ABR). Peter already had two normal OAEs so he just needed to have a sedation ABR. The test monitors brain wave activity in response to sound using electrodes that are placed on the person's head and ears and it must be performed on a resting/quiet person. And since it is impossible to get a toddler to lay quietly for over an hour toddlers are sedated for the test. Normal sedation causes brain activity to decrease, so toddlers are given a conscious sedation. This combined with prior sleep deprivation allows people to sleep soundly during the test.

Peter finally had the ABR this past Wednesday (after almost 3 months of waiting to get in!). Per the doctor's instructions, Peter could not go to bed until midnight Tuesday night. We then woke him a few minutes before 6 am and gave him 4 ounces of apple juice. Peter was not allowed to have any solid food or milk after midnight, and nothing including water after 6:30. Once Peter was awake we couldn't let him nap for even 5 minutes. I had to sit in the backseat with him on our 50 minute drive to Primary Children's Hospital to keep him awake. We arrived at the hospital at 8:45 am. After being admitted, the nurse put an ID tag on Peter's ankle that he furiously tried to get off.

Up to that point Peter had been incredibly good. When Ryan and I had received the instructions to cut 6 hours out of Peter's sleep the night before and to not feed him in the morning, we thought that Peter would be a nightmare. This is a boy who hates getting up early in the morning (so much like his mother!) and wants a bottle of milk as soon as he is awake. So we were pleasantly surprised when Peter was so calm Wednesday morning (apparently sleep deprivation occasionally has its benefits). Over the next hour we met with a couple of nurses, the audiologist, and the anaesthesiologist to discuss the sedation, test, etc. Peter stayed busy and awake during this hour by playing with the hospital bed in the room. Now he wants a bed with buttons that light up, move the bed, and call a nurse.

At 10 Peter was sedated. Because it wasn't meant to knock him out, I had to rock him to sleep. He fell asleep after about 10 minutes of rocking and listening to me sing (I think he fell asleep to escape my awful voice). At that point I put him in the hospital crib and the nurse hooked him up to various monitors. (I know the picture below is really dark, but I didn't want a flash to wake him up and the photos taken at an higher ISO were too noisy to use.) The audiologist then came in and put two electrodes on Peter's forehead, one behind each ear, and a small earphone in each ear. Then she began the test and Ryan fell asleep.

The audiologist finished the test in under an hour. I immediately knew that the test had gone well because if the test doesn't take the full 90 to 120 minutes that usually means few or no problems were found. After waking Ryan up, the audiologist then gave us the good news: Peter definitely does not have Audiotory Neuropathy and the results of the ABR combined with previous testing rule out any auditory issues! Peter already has enough working against him so we were both very excited and relieved by the results.

Next came the fun part: we had to wake Peter up. The anesthesiologist warned us that it might take a little while for Peter to wake up and that when he did he might act a "little drunk." Their plan was to wake him, give him some juice, and then observe him for 30 minutes up to several hours. They wanted to make sure that Peter wasn't too nauseated, could keep liquids down, and that his gross motor skills were close to normal. So we spent over 15 minutes trying to wake him up (it's amazing what a wet washcloth and picking his nose can do!).

Once he was awake, Peter was one cranky kid. When the doctor said Peter would act drunk, he wasn't kidding. But instead of getting the maudlin drunk or the crazy drunk, we got the angry drunk. Now I should have seen this coming because both times Ryan has come out of anaesthesia since we've been married he's been an absolute beast. He's angry and he swears more in 1 minute than he usually does in 1 year. Peter was pretty much the same (minus the swearing). He cried, screamed, kicked and thrashed. He really wanted to run but considering he couldn't even sit up without falling that was not an option. His equilibrium was completely off and his muscles were like noodles. He refused to drink anything and basically wouldn't do anything but scream and try to get down from the crib or Ryan's arms. The anaesthesiologist decided to go ahead and send Peter home. He said that if he was fighting us as much as he was, he was probably okay. So we headed home with a raging kid and a stack of instructions. Fortunately, Peter went to sleep when we got home. When he woke up that evening he had transformed into a loopy and fun drunk. Lots of staggering, lots of tumbles (don't worry, we kept him away from hard and sharp objects), lots of laughs and lots of goofy grins. Now we just need to convince him midnight is not a reasonable bedtime!