First Week of Preschool

Last week was Calvin's first week of preschool, and we also made a change to Henry's therapy schedule so that now he has therapy sessions Monday - Thursday. I had kinda imagined that with Calvin in preschool, it would feel like I had more time/freedom to go out and do things with Henry or run errands/get stuff done. But I am realizing that between Calvin's drop-off and pick-up times and Henry's therapy schedule, life actually feels much busier than before! 

I've been thinking about how the rhythm of the school day and school year will be the rhythm of our lives for the next couple of decades-ish. Feels like we're at the start of a big, important journey though the school years of parenting. Seems kind of daunting when I think about it that way! But there I go getting ahead of myself... Slow down, it's only the first week of preschool! 

Calvin seems to like school. Though, we did have our first drop-off cry-fest this week, followed by our first sick day (not a coincidence). Keeping him home sick felt weird because he didn't want to go in anyway that morning, so I kind of felt like I was giving in to his whining. But with the green slime snot coming out of his little nosie there was no way I was going to send him in to spread those germs all over his classroom. Ew. No. Plus I know the whining was also a symptom of the cold. Even grown-ups get cranky when they don't feel well (ahem, James). 

But apart from this cold episode (the first of many, no doubt!) he does seem to like school. When I drop him off the kids do free play first thing in the morning, and he usually goes straight to the reading corner and picks out a book. I've also seen him playing with some of his classmates, which is so nice to see. When I pick him up he's sitting on the rug listening to the read-aloud and looking half-asleep and sweaty! It's a long day for a little guy! It's just about the length of a regular school day, but they do get an hour or so naptime. When he sees me he immediately signs "eat" which is no surprise because when I look into his lunchbox at the end of the day I see that he's barely eaten anything. His teachers say he chugs his milk, though :) 

I taught his teachers a few ASL signs that he uses to help them understand him. They were really receptive and seemed to appreciate it. He hasn't started seeing his new school speech therapist yet, but I have spoken with her and it sounds like she's working with the teachers on setting up a time so maybe he'll be able to start next week. He should be getting an hour of therapy each week, and his new therapist is going to touch base with his doctor at Stanford about recommendations for his therapy. 

It's only been a week, so I know we're all still in the adjustment phase. I think Calvin will get used to the long school day and I hope he'll start eating more at lunch! And even though it's kind of surprising how busy our new schedule feels, I actually like being busy. Plus, another big part of our day is Henry's afternoon nap so I can generally count on a sweet hour and a half long break which I will totally use for responsible and productive purposes and not to lie on the couch eating bonbons... 

Calvin's runny nose is much better today, so it's back to school for him and a good thing, too, because I am signed up to volunteer in his calssroom for a couple of hours today! With Henry in tow... we'll see how that goes... wish me luck!

When Calvin is Suspiciously Quiet...

I bet you know the feeling, fellow parents. You're busy doing something, cooking, folding laundry, changing your other kid's diaper, checking Facebook... and suddenly you realize the house is quiet.

Too quiet.

Next thought is something like: Wait! Where's the toddler? (Or maybe, Oh sh**! Where's the toddler?)

Unrolling an entire brand new roll of toilet paper in the bathroom?

Stuffing his face with Cheerios from the pantry which he managed to open himself?

Distributing the laundry all over the living room floor?

Not Calvin.

Nope.

When Calvin is suspiciously quiet... he's usually sitting down somewhere reading a book.

Not that he never makes messes or does naughty things like dump out all of his stuffies/train tracks/duplos/you-name-it all over the floor or push his baby brother down and sit on him... It's just that when he's doing something naughty it's usually something LOUD.

But when he gets really quiet, I can almost always find him curled up somewhere with a book. The kid loves books. And he's perfectly content to look through books by himself. Maybe he's "reading the pictures." Maybe he's remembering the story from when a grown-up has read it. Maybe he's making up a story.

I watch him and I see him look at each page thoughtfully, turning pages periodically as though he were really reading.  Sometimes he gets to the end and starts over at the beginning, but usually once he finishes one he's on to another. Some mornings he'll go through stacks of books leaving behind a wake of them strewn on the floor.

He doesn't seem to have a specific favorite, but he has always loved Mo Willems' Elephant and Piggie books. In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak is another favorite at the moment, and also this Little People Valentine's book (which gets on James' nerves because it's more of a toy than a storybook... Sorry honey! The kid loves it!).

Unfortunately, his love for books does not extend to taking good care of his books. Some of his favorites have been loved literally to pieces... though to be fair, a few classes of first graders loved them a little too hard before Calvin ever got his hands on them. 

Calvin loves books so much, he has taken to snuggling a book with him in bed instead of a stuffie. Last night it was Tomie dePaola's Mother Goose book of nursery rhymes.

Goodnight from Calvin and Mother Goose!

What are your kid's favorite books? Any other Mo Willems fans? My favorite Elephant and Piggie book is My Friend is Sad. So funny and sweet! What about you?

Or how about most annoying books that your kids make you read? Like that Valentine's book!

Thursday Thoughts: Speech and Preschool Worries

I know I originally said my Thursday theme would be thankfulness, but I wanted to do something more open-ended. I need a day when I can just write about whatever is on my mind. 

And Calvin's speech problems are heavy on my mind this week. 

He talks a lot at home now. He knows that, for the most part, I understand him and sometimes he uses sign language or just gestures to help clarify what he's saying. He can have a conversation with me, tell me what he is thinking about, ask for things he wants. He has opinions, he has complaints, like any other 3-year-old. He says funny things, he even sings songs. And I can figure out what he's saying or singing. I understand him because I spend the most time with him by far. 

Good news is that we do think the surgery he had last March to repair his submucous cleft palate has made a difference. He sounds less nasal and he seems able to create the pressure he needs to produce sounds. But his articulation problems are severe. It's like his brain and his mouth muscles have the hardest time figuring out how to make certain sounds. He has to concentrate so hard to put his lips together and say "mmm" or "ba" and there are some sounds he can't figure out how to make at all. 

Sometimes I forget how problematic his articulation is because I'm so used to the way he talks. Other people cannot understand him like I can. Especially other kids. In fact, he doesn't even try to talk much to other people besides myself and James. I think he knows they won't understand him. But it doesn't stop him from being social and friendly! He just relies a lot on nonverbal communication, which he has become really good at - body language, gestures, facial expressions... and it always helps if the person he's trying to communicate with knows a few ASL signs. 

This is why I'm so worried about him going to preschool. He's so clever and capable. He's independent and social. He's even careful and thoughtful. But what is he going to do when no one understands what he says? How far is that nonverbal communication going to get him in a school setting?? How will he show his teachers and classmates how much he knows, how much he can learn, if they can't understand him like I can?

He will still get speech therapy. In fact, his speech therapist will be right there at the school, and his speech doctor at Stanford is going to try to get him increased therapy sessions. 

Learning to communicate without me there to translate could push him to make progress out of necessity. 

And we can get him language boards or let him use his talker app if it seems like he needs that kind of thing. 

But I am afraid it will break his little heart. 

I'm afraid he'll get frustrated and feel hurt. I'm afraid that the frustration will diminish his outgoing spirit. 

I know that kids are resilient and I believe that Calvin is resilient. My hope is that the benefits of a preschool experience will outweigh the difficulties. My prayer is that the challenges will help him discover that he is able to work hard to overcome them. That's how people learn, right? That's how we become strong and capable - by facing challenges and finding ways to work through them. 

In a way, I'll be right there with him doing my own learning and growing as I work through the challenges of figuring out how and how much to support him, and coping with letting go and giving him the chance to get out there, be himself, and learn for himself. 

It's so scary, y'all. I have so much worry and I'm trying so hard to let go of that worry and hold on instead to the hopes, the goals, and the good possibilities. Is it this hard for every parent to send their kid to preschool?? 

Calvin's Birthday Breakfast and a Trip to Fairyland

 The Bean turned 3!!

We had done a little birthday celebration with our cousins on Easter Sunday, but of course we wanted to make Calvin's actual birthday special too!

Birthday Breakfast is becoming a big tradition for our fam. I always want to make it special, but this time I think I took it pretty far with party decor since we didn't throw Calvin a party with his friends this year. Calvin was still on his mushy mush diet following his palate repair surgery, so we couldn't do any of our usual birthday breakfast goodies. Instead, I made a big batch of smoothies for Calvin, Henry, James, myself, and our cousin Hartley (who took the pics for us). I even taped three birthday candles to the ends of three drinking straws so that Calvin could blow them out :)

Birthday Breakfast! Smoothies all around!

Calvin checks out his birthday gifts. He was especially excited about the bubble machine!

And then he found his new tricycle!!

Calvin loves his new ride! His feet do reach the pedals, I promise! I realize it doesn't look like it in that pic, ha ha :) The bar attachment allows a grown-up to push him and help him steer while he gets the hang of it and it can be removed when we don't need it anymore. He has a helmet too, which is a hand-me-down from his friend Sagan.



Speaking of Sagan, he and his baby brother Izzy and their mama joined Calvin and Henry and me at Children's Fairyland in Oakland to spend Calvin's birthday among the storybook characters and magical creatures there.

Entering Fairyland, welcomed by a yellow dragon and an elf blowing bubbles from his mushroom perch.

Children's Fairyland is an amusement park for littles with rides and playgrounds and displays that help tell folk tales and fairy tales like The Three Little Pigs, Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland, Pinnochio, and many others.

Sagan and Henry as two of the three little pigs... Calvin didn't want to go into the houses! You can see the house of bricks in the background. Maybe Calvin is the wolf?

These little blue boxes accompany each different story area. You can get a special key to use on these boxes to hear the story and a song. Calvin is listening to Snow White sing "I'm Wishing" from the Disney movie.

Riding the Gryphon on the Alice in Wonderland carousel. Henry is asleep in the Ergo. I feel like this pic makes it look like my arm is in a sling, but it's Henry's head under the Ergo hood.

Crawling through the tunnel into Mr. MacGregor's garden in the Beatrix Potter neighborhood.

A ride on the Jolly Trolley! 

Rachel, Izzy, and Sagan in the car next to us!

I know Calvin was exhausted by the end of our day at Fairyland, but he didn't want to leave! He just wanted to hang out with this elf on the mushroom and chase the bubbles around! He still says the bubbles were his favorite part.

He may be tiny, but he is looking more and more like a big boy every day. He is as curious and independent as ever. He has such a sweet and open heart. Always thoughtful of his baby brother and friendly to others. Being a toddler is not easy! Sharing is hard, having grown-ups set limits is hard, learning new skills is hard. Going through surgery and recovery is most definitely hard! But Calvin's sunny charm shines through all of it, and God's love shines through him.

Happy 3rd birthday to our Bean, and many many more!

Calvin Wellness Update: Post Palate Repair and On the Mend

I'm very happy to report that Calvin's surgery last week went well and that he seems to be doing great!

Everything went very smoothly with his two procedures. As expected, his hernia repair was a quick fix (again, this was a hernia resulting from a birth "defect," not from an injury). They made a small incision above his little outie belly button, put in a scope to find the tiny hole, and put in a couple of stitches to close it up. No stitches on his belly, just that surgical super-glue stuff. For his palate repair, the plastic surgeons opened up his soft palate to reveal the underlying muscles. Then they attached the muscles to each other as they are supposed to be. So, to my understanding, he's got stitches to hold the muscles together so that they can heal into the correct shape, and stitches to close up the surface of his soft palate (the part you can see if you look at the back of his mouth). Everything should heal up in a couple of weeks and the stitches will dissolve. For now, he's on a strict soft foods diet because anything hard could poke into his stitches. We will see his plastic surgeon for a follow up next week.

Pre-surgery, waiting to be taken to the OR (Watching Finding Nemo)

Caring for a kiddo straight out of the OR is so tough. Definitely up there with the hardest and scariest experiences for me as a mom. This was the third time, and it's not something that has gotten easier even with an idea of what to expect. Each time, the babies were just so vulnerable and disoriented. The anesthesia gives them nausea. After Henry's tonsillectomy and Calvin's palate repair, they both drooled some blood. At first they were barely awake, and then as they came around they became extremely upset and agitated. They were hard to console. They fought the nurses and tried to pull at their wires and tubes. They cried and cried until they fell asleep, calmed by pain medicine. I am sure they were frightened. I was frightened. I knew they were going to be OK. I believed that the hard part would pass. But it was so painful to see my boys in that state.

I don't mean to diminish the fact that we are very thankful for capable doctors and successful surgeries. I'm asking myself why it feels important to write about that part of the experience, the hardest part for me. Probably the hardest part for them, though they aren't able to tell for themselves. It feels a little dishonest to leave it out or gloss over it. I think it's important to focus on positive things and to give thanks for every blessing. But part of me also feels like it is important to acknowledge the hard parts of the journey, the scary, ugly moments that we have to go through to get to the happy endings.

A couple of hours after surgery, snuggling and sleeping.

The only bad news from the doctors was that the muscles in Calvin's palate are very thin. As one of his surgeons put it, "there's not much muscle there." This means they may never be strong enough to function well, despite being attached properly. If, over another year or two, it seems like he's not improving it will mean another surgery. Meanwhile, he still has his other articulation difficulties not related to his palate (learning to use his lips & tongue to produce certain sounds that are hard for him). There are a few components to helping Calvin develop "normal" speech and his palate muscles are just one piece of the puzzle. We've still got a lot of hard work and speech therapy ahead, but I'm thankful to have this surgery piece behind us. Even if it isn't his last surgery, it was still an important step.

The following morning, watching Finding Nemo again!

Calvin's energy actually returned very quickly! Just the day after surgery he was playing around in his hospital crib with his brother.

The pain meds made a huge difference for the first couple of days, though we were conservative with medicating him. Once we were home, we slowly backed off on the Tylenol and now he doesn't seem to need it at all.

Yummy ice cream treat after leaving the hospital :)

I thought the "soft foods" diet would be a big hit, but Calvin has not been too impressed with our attempts to keep him nourished on smoothies and yogurt :/ Of course, he loved the pudding and Jell-o at the Easter party yesterday.

He's running around and playing, but he's also napping more during the day and feeling kind of clingy at night, wanting to sleep in the big bed with James and me.

He's not quite back to 100%, but all in all he's doing great. Thank you so much to everyone who has kept our family in thoughts and prayers. We had a very happy Easter yesterday and it's hard to believe, but our little Bean's 3rd birthday is just days away!! Love this little guy.

Calvin's Speech Therapy and Upcoming Surgery

Calvin has delayed speech related to his chromosome disorder, 22q deletion syndrome. He used sign language almost exclusively (and very successfully!) from the time he was 18 months old until he was about 30 months old and in that time he learned well over 100 signs. His receptive language has always been on target for his age.

He started speech therapy a couple of months after he turned two. At first he saw his therapist for an hour once a week, then later we added a second therapist to do a second hour per week on a different day, and recently he's been having a third therapy session (only 20 minutes long) with his doctor at Stanford who is a part of the Craniofacial Clinic team that follows Calvin's case because of his submucous cleft palate (also related to 22q).

It took a couple of months of speech therapy before Calvin really started trying to talk. One of his therapists, Holly, thinks it might have actually been the experience of having his arm in a sling (after fracturing his collarbone in September of last year) that motivated him to start using his voice because it was hard to sign one-handed. He still uses sign language along with speaking to communicate, but he is now saying single words, and sometimes 2- or even 3- word phrases. Yaaay!

Here's the Bean with Holly back in January. You can see here that he's not always a cooperative little student!

Here he is with one of his animal books in February.

But now that he is talking we can see and hear that he has a lot of problems with his articulation. He's not using his lips and tongue the way he needs to in order to produce sounds, so when he talks it usually comes out as all vowel sounds, no consonants. His speech therapists (and his dad and I) have been working with him for the past several months trying to help him get the hang of putting his lips together to go "b-" "mm-" "p-." It can be really frustrating for us and for him :/ We try not to push too hard because we don't want to make talking stressful for him.

Calvin's speech development is also affected by his submucous cleft palate. His palate looks intact, no hole when you look into his mouth, but the muscles underneath his soft palate (back of the mouth/throat) are not connected as they should be. Those muscles are supposed to connect in kind of an arch that moves the soft palate up and down and helps control air flow when talking or eating. Those muscles in Calvin's mouth are not connected, so they can't do their job properly.

Calvin is going to have a surgery to repair his submucosal cleft. This means his plastic surgeon will go in and connect the muscles of his soft palate. We don't know how much this will help his speech development, but we hope that it will make things a little easier for him. It should help with the air flow when he is speaking. Of course, it won't solve the problem of getting him to use his lips correctly, and we know he will need continued speech therapy no matter what.

Unrelated to his speech and palate, Calvin also has a hernia in his abdomen that needs repairing. (It's not the result of an injury. When babies have hernias it's because they were born with a little hole where there shouldn't be one. It doesn't hurt him, but it could hurt him one day if part of his intestine were to get stuck in the little hole that shouldn't be there.) To repair the hernia, it's a really quick procedure and it's usually an outpatient surgery. They make a tiny cut and a tiny stitch. We know this because Calvin has already had hernia repair surgery before. But he still has to be put under general anesthesia for the hernia procedure. So, to reduce the number of times he needs to be under anesthesia, we are opting to do the two procedures - the palate repair and the hernia repair - together in one surgery.

Two different surgeons are needed for the two different procedures: a plastic surgeon for the palate repair, and a general pediatric surgeon for the hernia repair. To make his case even more complex, Calvin also has to be cleared for surgery by his cardiologist because of his heart defect (a tiny VSD that gives him a heart murmur, but is otherwise non-symptomatic). His cardiologist will likely recommend that he have a special team of cardio-anesthesiologists do his anesthesia for the surgery.

We've got a surgery date set for March 31. So soon!! But it's pending an appointment with his cardiologist to get the all clear that his heart can tolerate surgery. (We're not worried. He hasn't had any problems related to his VSD - Thank God.) He will also have to have pre-op appointments with his plastic surgeon, his general surgeon, and the cardio-anesthesiologists. All between now and March 31! And, as we learned from Henry's surgery last fall, there's always the chance that his surgery will end up getting rescheduled, particularly because there are three different departments involved: plastic surgery, general surgery, and cardiology.

I'll post updates on Facebook, and, assuming the surgery actually does happen on the 31st, I'll wait until after it's over to write another blog update on Calvin.

The closer we get to surgery, the more the whole ordeal feels pragmatic and logistical instead of hairy and scary. I've definitely spent wakeful nights and tearful moments worrying about Calvin going through another surgery, but at the moment I'm not feeling fearful as much as I am feeling determined. I hate that he needs surgery. It feels awful and unfair. But we're eager to do anything that could help his speech development, and it will be a relief to have that last hernia taken care of. We know he will be in good hands. We are so lucky to have access to the great medical care we get from Stanford for both boys. We love our little Bean and we'll keep doing everything we can to help him grow and thrive.

Snow Dough and Cloud Dough

For day 9 of our Christmas Countdown, I made Calvin some very special (and really really weird) Snow Dough!

Found this on Pinterest and when I saw the ingredients I was like "Whaaa??? Seriously?"

That's right, people. Toilet paper, Ivory soap, and water. (Glitter was my own addition. I used the recipe from this post on Modern Mommyhood.)

You start by tearing the TP up into little bits in a bowl or plastic container. This part is kind of annoying. You need about half a roll, so rip away. The smaller the better, but it was driving me crazy so my pieces weren't that small. That huge piece you can see in the picture was Calvin's contribution. He had even less patience for the ripping part than I did. I ripped it up into smaller pieces after I took the pic.

We used more TP than what you see in the container here. I used about half the roll.

Next you microwave the Ivory soap. I know, right. I told you this is weird. Microwave it for 1-2 minutes. And it must be Ivory soap. Apparently other soaps don't do this crazy thing you're about to see...

Microwaved Ivory soap

It looks foamy, but it is actually papery and you can rip it up just like the toilet paper and add it to your container. When I had ripped up all that I could, there was still a hard piece in the middle that hadn't puffed up, so I put it back into the microwave for another minute.

And it puffed right up again! I ripped that one up and added it to the rest. Then I sprinkled glitter all over it! 

I am sorry about these blurry photos! I must have had too much coffee that day... 

Here's where I got a little lazy and I'd do it differently next time. I just kind of threw everything into the container in layers and then poured the water over it and tried to mix it. The result was that it was hard to incorporate the toilet paper with the soap and glitter and I had to pull apart big chunks of wet toilet paper in order to get a consistent mix. I'd recommend mixing the TP, the weird soap flakes, and the glitter really well while they are all still dry. Then when you add the water I think it will be more even. I only used 1.5 c. water, but the recipe from Modern Mommyhood says she used 2.5 cups. I feel like it was plenty wet and pliable and it felt like if I added more it would have been too liquid. Maybe I had less absorbent toilet paper than she did.

Ok, so all that work and here was our beautiful, slightly blue and slightly sparkly Snow Dough! Here ya go Calvin! Now you get to play with it! 

You wan't me to touch that?

Um. no. Bye bye.

Mo-ommmm... noooooooo....

Or not.

Yet again, mama strikes out with her brilliant idea. #facepalm #everybodysacritic

Well, I made a super cute snowman out of it all by myself thankyouverymuch. Meanwhile, Calvin requested to play with his Cloud Dough instead. 

Fine. Cue the Cloud Dough!

So, Cloud Dough is way easier to make. It's just two ingredients, though you can get fancy by adding food coloring, glitter, or even scented oils. But the basic recipe is just oil + flour. And from what I've read from the collective wisdom of Pinterest, you can use any kind of oil that is liquid at room temp (so, not coconut oil, but pretty much anything else). I opted for canola oil. 

All the recipes I have read for Cloud Dough, like this one from Happy Hooligans use a 1:8 ratio of oil to flour. However, when I was making ours, apparently I got distracted or something because I only used 4 cups of flour and I didn't realize it until we were already playing with the dough. It was plenty fun with our 1:4 mix, so I was like, why use more flour? And I left it as it was. So ours is probably wetter than typical Cloud Dough. 

The oil makes the flour stick together slightly so you can mold it and shape it. Calvin likes to bury little plastic jewels in it and have his dinosaurs dig them out :)

That batch of Cloud Dough has lasted us since August. I keep it in a tupperware container. I'm not sure how long the Snow Dough will last. Anybody know about saving Snow Dough?

Calvin absolutely will not touch the Snow Dough, but he loves the Cloud Dough! Go figure. Maybe if we pretend the dinosaurs are building a snowman... 

Do you wanna build a snowman? :)

Calvin vs. Collage

Did a quick art project with Calvin yesterday. I thought of another way to make a pretty fall tree with orange, yellow, and red leaves... torn paper collage! Torn paper collage is a technique where you use torn bits of different papers to create or fill in shapes. My idea was to use the torn paper to fill in the leaves of a fall tree and the feathers of a turkey.

I thought this was a brilliant idea. As it turned out, Calvin felt otherwise. But I figured it was worth sharing anyway. I mean, I like torn paper collage. Surely some other kid out there would be into this even if mine wasn't!

For a simple torn paper collage, you really just need paper and glue. If you want to get fancy, you can use fancy paper or even paint the paper first, which is a whole other art project. You could also embellish your picture with glitter or stickers or whatever else you can glue down. We kept it really simple.

Just like I had done for our fall fingerpaint trees, I drew a tree trunk and branches ahead of time. I also drew a turkey head on another sheet. I cut our construction paper into strips so that we could tear off little pieces easily - or at least, I thought it would be easy. Turns out Calvin can't tear pieces off of a strip of paper just yet. I gave him a strip and showed him how I was ripping little pieces off. He proceeded to squeeze it and pull it until it was pretty well mangled but still in one piece. 

Hmm...

In an attempt to salvage this project I tore little notches all along another strip and with some teamwork, he was able to rip pieces off. I held the big strip, and he would pinch the end and tear it. He got the hang of pinching the paper and twisting his hand while pulling. He just couldn't do that while also steadying the paper with his other hand. That's ok. We can work on part of a skill at a time. I even made sure to have him switch hands halfway through so he got practice with his right and left. 

We did one strip together like this and I tore the other two strips for him. Once our paper was in little torn pieces, I set out a small dish of glue and showed Calvin how to touch a piece of paper to the glue, then stick it to the picture.

He had no problem gluing on the pieces of paper. But I feel compelled to confess that I glued at least half of those feathers and leaves on myself because truth be told, Calvin was much more entertained by running around in circles than he was by this collage project!

When I found myself begging him to come glue a feather on the turkey I was like, ya know what? If he's not into it, let's move on! Honestly, I think I lost him when ripping the paper turned out to be hard for him. Ripping paper is a really good task for little hands. It takes some coordination and it works those little hand muscles which is important for other fine motor tasks and especially for writing. So, Calvin, this is not the last you'll see of torn paper collage! We shall meet again! 

Ever started a project that your kids weren't into? This is not the first time it's happened to me - nor will it be the last I'm sure!