Gratituesday: therapy

I was reminded yesterday at Charlie's Dysphagia therapy, that this coming Thursday will be 2 years exactly since we started therapy for his eating issues.  That was quite a realization to think it's been 2 years.  My initial thought was how ironic that the anniversary of something I've been so un-thankful for is falling on a day of thanksgiving.  Wait, is that irony?  I never know.  And not that this is the only day we should be thankful, people.  

It's been a long two years.  There are plenty of days where I feel like the martyred mother who must do therapy with her child every day, multiple times a day.  The mother who can't eat a meal in peace unless her child is at someone else's house.  Wait, maybe that's all mothers with toddlers.  The mother who's life revolves around her child's meals and food.

And then I get perspective.  Perspective like the Dragon Mom I recently blogged about.  Or this other story I found recently of another Dragon Mom who finally lost their battle and kissed their sweet baby girl one last time. I'm sure I would have cried over both of these stories even when I wasn't a mother, but being a mother now makes these stories so much more real, and I can easily saturate tissues and napkins galore before I get past the first paragraph of stories like that.


And when I finally connected all of this in my brain yesterday, I had this moment, perhaps for the first time, where I was truly. seriously. for real. absolutely grateful. for therapy.  Not just the "oh yea I'm grateful we have this and are trying to fix it, blah blah blah" kind of thankfulness.  Charlie has never been failure to thrive (which some kids with eating disorders can be), it's not a terminal illness, we have money to see a therapist, and most vivid yesterday was the fact that WE ARE SEEING PROGRESS!!!  The progress part is exciting because we have definitely been through long periods where progress has been microscopic to non-existent.  And recently it's been visible!  I have hope!  My son will one day eat soup and bread and raw veggies and nuts and pieces of all kinds of healthy foods, instead of pureed everything.  Did I mention I hate purees?  I do.


Why am I glad for therapy specifically?  Because we are seeing progress.  Wait, back up.  Because the speech/dysphagia therapists caught the problem when he was 6 weeks old, and we started taking measures to make sure that nothing got worse, so he didn't grow up establishing a cycle of incorrect eating patterns, resulting in more problems as he grew, poor digestion from un-chewed food, refusal to eat food due to poor digestion and upset tummy (which can lead to failure to thrive) and scariest of all, lots of potential choking that happens when you don't have correctly established chew/swallow patterns.  I don't care how experienced you are in the matter, that moment when you realize your child is really choking, it's scary.

Am I grateful to have avoided all of that?  You bet.  Did that mean I was thankful for therapy?  Not really and truly.  Not until yesterday.

So on this Gratituesday I am thankful for Charlie's therapists and his therapy sessions.  And while I'd love to think of what else we could have done with the time and money we've poured into therapy, I can truly say that  I am grateful we have been able to do this for our son to save him a whole host of problems as he progresses through life.

And this Thanksgiving day - 2 years from our first therapy session - I will be so grateful to have a happy, healthy, thriving child.

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Gratituesday: Perspective

When one is in the middle of potty training, one needs perspective.  A whole lot of it.

When one's two year old still cannot/will not correctly chew table foods in his mouth and has to be fed purees and done exercises with every meal, one needs perspective.

Potty training has not been going swimmingly.  In fact, I have my doubts as to whether or not he's ready.  I feel a little like hitting myself in the head with a brick due to the tediousness of it, but I think I could deal with that if I truly felt like this was something he was willing to do.  When after two and a half days he cries whenever I take off his pants to have some "naked potty time", I have my doubts.

But back to my tediousness.  In my few attempts at potty training, it's the one thing that really makes me feel like not having anymore kids.  I sat on the kitchen floor Monday morning thinking in the most no uncertain terms, that I was done having kids and didn't ever want to go through this again.  And for those of you that know me, you know considering stopping after one kid is just not on my list.  But this is tedious.  I almost hate it more than his daily eating therapy.  Actually I do hate it more than the actual act of therapy, but the length of time we've been doing his dysphagia therapy outweighs the more unpleasantness of the actual act of potty training.  One kid and I feel like potty training has defeated me already.  I'm sure all you mother's of multiple potty trained kids are laughing at me right now.

Anyways, back to Gratituesday and the actual topic: perspective.  This morning I read this article called Notes from a Dragon Mom.  I would encourage you to read it, but do know it was absolutely heart wrenching.  Confession: I did in fact cry, a lot.  My heart broke for the mama writing it.


If you don't feel that you can make yourself read it, the gist of it is a mother of a little 18m boy who has Tay-Sachs, an incurable genetic disease, that will likely take his life by the time he is 3 years old, and how that has altered their life.


If that doesn't give you perspective over potty training and two years of non-life threatening dysphagia therapy, I don't know what does.  Lord willing, I have a reasonable hope to enjoy my sweet baby long after he is 3 years old.  As bad as I feel it can get when I'm stuck doing exercises with a little guy who doesn't want me near his mouth, or when I've sat on the floor for two hours watching my son's every move in the hopes of catching some pee-pee in the potty, I am grateful for my reasonable hope.  I am grateful for my God-given son, whom I cherish getting spend time with, raise and love.

At the risk of sounding completely insensitive, there is one aspect to their situation that, I wouldn't exactly say that I envy, but that I wish I could implement in my daily life even without their unique circumstances.    Because her son is slowly regressing towards a vegetative state within the next few years of their lives, there is no push, no schedule, no "we must get through this for the future".   There is just today.  Just loving.

"But the day-to-day is often peaceful, even blissful. This was my day with my son: cuddling, feedings, naps."

How often would I describe my day as peaceful and only consisting of cuddling, feeding and loving my son?  Less frequent than I would like.  Mothers of non-terminally ill children have a different set of goals for living.  They plan for the future and make decisions based on future good.  Dragon Moms have today.  They have loving and living and comforting today.

I'm not jealous of her situation.  My heart grieves for that Mama and Daddy who will soon lose their precious child, but I wish I could capture the "freedom from tomorrow" mentality sometimes and remember to take days where all I do is enjoy and revel in the amazing little boy God has given us.

I do realize that no one is guaranteed tomorrow.  "The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord. Job 1:21"  We don't know when our time on this earth is done and we are not guaranteed tomorrow.  I know this.  But....I admit that this feels different.

So, perspective.  On the verge of feel very frustrated and declaring potty training unsuccessful at this time, I am grateful for perspective on it all.  And grateful for yet another day to enjoy my son.

NC State Fair 2011

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Gratituesday: Nana and Grandbobby

I forgot to mention in my beach posts that we stopped at Nana and Grandbobby's house (William's maternal grandparents) on our way to the beach.  We are very lucky that they are about half way between home and the beach so it makes a perfect breaking point in the trip for the Charlie man to run around and let off steam.  And I FINALLY remembered to get some good shots (posted below) of just Charlie and Nana and Grandbobby, something I have been meaning to do.  Yay!

Charlie is so blessed to have 3 of his great-grandparents living, and 2 of them within easy driving distance.  I never had the chance to know any of my great-grandparents, and because we lived a good 12 hours away from all of our extended relatives, I never got to see my grandparents more than about once a year.  I loved them and appreciated them, don't get me wrong, but I wanted so badly to have a relationship with them and see them more than once a year.  I couldn't be more thrilled that (at least for the time being) Charlie has his grandparents and 2 great-grandparents all close enough to see on a regular basis.  Charlie loves spending time and Grandma and Grandpa's house, Grammy's house, and Nana and Grandbobby's house.

I'm a little surprised that he has such vivid memories of N&G's house actually.  To this day, 2 months later, he still talks about going to see "Naaahh and Bah-beee".  He even talks about seeing "Djeaanie" a lady who was there that day helping them around the house, and talks about the little lion they had there as part of a Noah's Ark toy.  He loves to talk about Nana and Grandbobby.  Sometimes he will just walk around the house saying, "Bah-bee, Bah-BEE!"  When he picked up my hair clip the other day and I told him it was a Bobby Pin, he got this gleam in his eye like, "Bobby!!  This is Grandbobby's?!?"  I just knew that's what was running through his head. :)

I love this series of shots because it shows him interacting with Nana and Grandbobby.  Sometimes small children have reservations about being around elderly people, but Charlie has no qualms about running right up and hugging Grandbobby and sitting on Nana's lap.  That indeed makes my heart glad.

Do you still have a great-grandparent that you can hug and tell how grateful you are to have them in your life?

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Gratituesday: doctors when we need them

The title kind of sounds more suspenseful and dramatic than it really is.  We've had no emergency doctor visits here, unlike one of the bloggers I read who recently had to take her daughter to the ER for stitches.

But I did have to head to the doctors' office this morning to get some lab work done.  My TSH checked specifically (Thyroid Stimulating Hormone).  I have hypothyroidism - an under active thyroid - which means that I'm on daily medication for it for the rest of my life.  If you know me, you know that the thought of being tied down to a prescription for the rest of my life just makes me cringe.  In fact when I first got the news (while being pregnant and hormonal), I cried and cried and the personal calling me couldn't understand why it was such a big deal to be tied down to a tiny little pill every day.   I try to eat as much whole, unprocessed foods as possible to avoid being sick and needing medication, and then when I do get sick, I try to get well by as natural a means as possible.  But there was no alternate means for this.  Anyways, this was traumatic for me... blah blah blah.

Back to the appointment this morning.  My healthcare practitioner was indeed running late this morning, and I sat there grumpy because I was wasting my child-free day on sitting in a waiting room.  I finally was seen, and eventually after insurance questions and forgetting my water bottle, got back out and made it home.  Still rather grumpily.

Then I realized a couple things.  We have the ability in this day and age to treat hypothyroidism.  That means I can avoid the depression, extreme exhaustion, decreased taste and smell, puffy face, hair and hands, the slowing of speech, etc.  I should be grateful to avoid the slowing of speech, right?  Even if it means I'm tied to a prescription for the rest of my life and I have to sit in the doctors office for 45 minutes waiting for a simple test.  Also, we have the ability and the means to get to a doctor to keep my thyroid in check.  I should be grateful for insurance to help pay for it, and a car to get me to the doctor's, right?

Yes.

So I'm not going to grump about the prescription I have to take or my time that was wasted this morning.  I'm going to be grateful for the doctor and go tackle my to-do list.

(And lest we forget, I should be grateful that I didn't have to wait an extra 30 minutes with my toddler in tow, RIGHT??? - thanks Mom and Dad!)

Gratituesday: Baaa and Maaa

I love reading the Heavenly Homemakers blog, especially her Gratituesday posts.  I like the idea of taking the time to purposefully write about something you are thankful for and sharing it with others.  I'm so often tempted to feel ungrateful for so many things or to take for granted the things I should be so grateful for.  So I am going to do my best to join in the Gratituesday fun and share things that I'm thankful for.  Hopefully I'll start living in a little more constant state of gratefulness and realize just how many blessings I do have.

So here goes....

Just this fall my parents ("Baaa" and "Maaa" as Charlie calls Grandpa and Grandma) have started keeping Charlie, and two of his (close in age) cousins on Tuesdays for most of the day.  I am certainly grateful for the time that gives me away from my toddler, to breathe, to not be "mommy mommy mommmy" on call all day, and to zip around running errands at lightening speed while taking on projects in the house that are no fun to take on with a toddler underfoot.

But more than that I am so grateful that my parents get a chance to spend time with Charlie and watch him grow up.  I'm thankful that they are at a point in their lives and live close enough where they feel like that can make a weekly commitment like that to enjoy their grandsons.  All of my grandparents (and extended family of any kind) lived up in Ohio growing up, and so making the 12 hour trip once a year to visit people didn't provide for the kind of relationship building that weekly visits to Baaa and Maaa's house will for Charlie.  And Charlie LOVES getting to go over to see them and play at their house.  "Baaa" is particular favorite of Charlie's.  :)

And I'm grateful not just for grandparent relationships, but also cousin relationships.  Charlie has no siblings as of yet, so I'm grateful that every Tuesday he gets the sibling experience in the form of his cousins, who he enjoys playing with.  I'm grateful that he will know his cousins better than I ever knew any of my cousins, and hopefully will be great friends with them.

So there's my first Gratituesday post.


What are you thankful for?


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