Jacob's Eye Appointment

Well, Jacob had his appointment with the opthamologist today. We were told it would likely be a 2 1/2 hour appointment, but thankfully it was only about an hour. Whew!

His eyes are fine. We were referred because back in January he started this really hard blinking thing. I took him to the ped, where we saw a ped that was not our usual one. She checked him real quick and figured it was likely allergies, and told me if it wasn't better by the end of that week we would bring him back in. When I did, she took him off of the drops and gave us the referral to be sure it was nothing, and explained that for some reason kids (particularly boys) will develop a benign tic that they outgrow.

So, today we went in and during the initial conversation about why we were sent there, I brought up the fact that we were given a prescription for drops and handed the box over. Turns out that many peds prescribe these drops without knowing that they have to build up in the system and will not work immediately like so many (our ped included) seem to think they will. They dilated his eyes and did a check. He is fine and she thinks it is just allergies that are messing with him.

She did mention he appears to be farsighted, but said that is very common with kids his age. Apparently we are all born with some mechanism in our eyes that causes many people to be farsighted, and every day the mechanism fades a little bit. By the time most of us are 40 we have the need for reading glasses. She said there is no need for glasses right now, and as far as the future we have to just wait and see how it changes as he grows. It likely wouldn't be an issue until the teen years at the earliest.

We go back in a month. Until then, we are back to using the drops twice a day to see if there is any relief.

When we were leaving, Jacob announced to me he would like to be an eye doctor. LOL Guess we will see. :)

Another layout for you:


Patterned and plain papers and elements by DebF - My Candy kit
RicRac by Daniella Peuss - from DIVA Kit
Font used: Jester and Kayleigh

Baby Einstein - So disappointing

Anyone else have the latest DVD? You know, the Meet the Orchestra - First Instruments one.

What a disappointment. :( I am soooo not impressed. IMO, it is the worst of the series, and I usually love Baby Einstein. I was really looking forward to it, having been a music teacher.

I think it stinks that she used a lot of synthesized instruments as opposed to real sound clips. There are so many ways she could have done musical examples in a better way. I mean, for Pete's sake, she sold out to Disney, so she should have had access to the Young People's Orchestra they put together every year, and it would have been prefectly fine...and she probably wouldn't have lost a penny to do so.

I also was a little upset that she replaced commonly seen and heard instruments with others that are not found in orchestras...A prime example can be seen in the woodwind section (my section! LOL). She took out the oboe and replaced it with the recorder. Umm, yeah. I can't recall the last time I saw a recorder in an orchestra, let alone the last time I saw it outside of an elementary school classroom. But, I guess they tried redeeming themselves by sticking the oboe in the bonus features section under the Discovery Cards...right along with the accordian, harmonica, and steel drum.

I say stick to "Peter and the Wolf" to teach kids the instruments if you must use a video. ;)

I made two more layouts:



Credits: Patterned background papers and elements by Mrs. Schmuck ~ Sweet Chloe set
Fonts: Kaleigh and ?



Credits: Papers and Elements - Midsummer Swelter by Rina
Fonts - I am horrible about remembering the fonts! I'll get better. :)

School update time

Well, Jacob and I have pretty much finished our study of Egypt. It's funny how we see Heiroglyphs on TV, games, in stores and in books all over the place now. I don't necessarily notice them until he points them out to me. We are still tentatively planning a field trip to a museum to fully wrap up the topic. I think he will really enjoy that, as will the other kids.

We are now moving on to the food groupings and food pyramid. We've talked about this in the past, but I want something concrete to show that we did cover it. So, we'll spend a couple of days making a chart and some other projects on that. After that is done we will be trying to make an Easter Lapbook or notebook. I'd like to do a lapbook, but we'll see how much we have at the end and the best way of putting it all together.

Joshua just completed his most recent socialization classes. He was sick for two out of the six due to being sick, which isn't great. However, in the four classes he did attend, he got so much from them. He is so good at remembering the steps he has learned in there and applying them. He is doing much better at initiating play with his siblings and adults. He still has to be reminded to actually play once he asks someone to join him, but he will get there soon, I am sure. He also has improved with letting them know when he is done, but the eye contact during this is still a big thing needing work. There is such a difference in him.

Oh! Another thing that Josh did - we had a playdoh day last Friday. The kids have been wanting to do this for a while and I was feeling rotten and thought that would be a good idea. Why, I don't know...we'll just say I was a little loopy from the Tylenol Severe Allergy medicine I was taking. LOL Anyway, we took out ALL of the playdoh items we had - 13 containers of misc colors of playdoh, all of our playdoh molds and cutters, and Josh's Crayola Dough Car Factory set. Joshua wanted to make a purple car, and naturally that was the only color we did not have. So, I told him we would have to mix some of the colors together to get purple for him to use. We took out the red and blue and I told him he would have to squish them together lots and lots to get it to turn purple. I demonstrated what he would need to do and handed it to him to finish. I fully expected the normal crocodile tears and heartwrenching cries when he touched it, but he didn't do it this time! Instead, he took it right out of my hands and began squishing it together and asking if it looked purple enough yet. I couldn't believe it! Woohoo! It was good to see improvements in this area as well. :)

Blah

Well, I went to the doctor on Monday. I figured 14 weeks of on and off sickness was more than enough. I am sick of almost coughing up a lung every night and getting no relief. Plus, this weekend had me feeling like death warmed over. So, I went in and saw the PA of my new primary care doctor. He was not too happy about me having waited so long to come in, but oh well. They did a peak flow meter and then did the pulse ox monitor on me. The second one worried me a little at first because it registered as me only getting 90% oxygen. So the nurse played with the cord a minute, making sure it was actually plugged in all of the way and it steadily went up to 100%. Whew!

It was so odd. The PA took very little history. There were no forms to fill out about medical history, family history, specific diseases, etc. Every doctor I have ever been to in the past has had papers to fill out on those types of things - geez, even the ER asks you specific questions about things in your medical history. No specific questions were asked really...just if my mom and dad had any major medical issues and if I had any medications I was currently taking. He asked about any surgeries and I went through the medical issues I had with each of my pregnancies on my own. I volunteered about my past history with my thyroid. Being sick though, I totally did not think about telling him about my tonsillectomy as a kid or the ulcer I had at 12 years old. I am assuming he could tell that the tonsills were gone when he looked at my throat, but who knows how well his quick glance was?

He looked at my ears, throat, nose, and then listened briefly to my chest. He said he'd get me some meds and be right back. He came back with samples of Biaxin XL and told me get some Mucinex DM OTC. He also commented that I "had this cough long enough to warrant a chest x-ray". Then he told me to be sure to make an appointment with my GYN since I am overdue for the yearly check and make another appointment to get established with my regular doctor. As we were leaving, he asked if there was a history of asthma in my family, and I told him yes, my brother has it pretty severe and my mother has it as well. So, he says if this doesn't help then we may need to talk about getting me an inhaler. Yippee.

So, what is wrong with me? I have no earthly idea. He never gave me a diagnosis. Nice, huh? I have felt so washed out since going in though. In some ways I feel worse than before I went and saw him. My cough is not near as bad, but I now am having stomach issues, I'm guessing from the antibiotic. I also am plain worn out I feel wimpy, as my aunt would say. I couldn't even take Josh to therapy today, so my mother had to do it. That's a first, so that just goes to show how crappy I feel.

In the meantime, I have taken up digital scrapbooking. What fun! Here is my first layout:


Credits: Patterned background papers and elements by Cheryl Whitesel ~ Spring RAK

Guess what this is

This is post number 100! I can't believe I have typed that many posts, yet at the same time wonder what post number I would be at if I had not taken so many long breaks lately. LOL

I have tried thinking about something nifty to post here, but didn't really succeed in doing so. Instead, I thought I would share some new pics of Elena. I tried getting some of the other kids, but none of them were in a photo mood. Elena is a ham when the camera is out though. :)

Another funny Josh story

Joshua is such a funny kid. I think what makes it even funnier is that he hasn't a clue how funny some of the things he says come out.

At the end of speech today, his therapist wanted to quickly get him to try something. She's been working each week to get him to name items in a category in one minute, but he just seems to not understand what she means.

So, today's topic was food - his greatest motivator according to the psych. LOL This should have been a cinch for Josh, but he just stood there. After several times of rephrasing the question, he named Cheerios and pretzels. The rest of the conversation:

Therapist - "What do you like to eat for breakfast?"
Joshua - "Cereal".
Therapist - "How about for lunch?"
Joshua - "Sandwich".
Therapist - "What about dinner? What do you eat then?"
Joshua, with a serious frown - "Yucky stuff". LOL

(laughter from both the therapist and me)

Therapist - "Well, what is something that Mommy makes that you like to eat?"
Joshua - "TV Dinners".

I had no idea my cooking was that bad! ROFL

Funny conversation

This is one of many conversations the boys had during the trip home yesterday:

Jacob: "When I grow up I want to visit Egypt."
Me: "That would be cool."
Josh: "I don't want to grow up!"
Jacob: "Egypt has deserts, so I think it would be really cool to see them!"
Joshua: "I just want to go to Target."


Joshua is so easy to please. LOL

I'm a slacker

Yes, I know. I have slacked once again. It's been a heck of a couple of weeks. I have a major dentist phobia thanks to a jerk pediatric dentist I had as a child. I won't go into everything that happened, but I will say it was enough to scare me enough to have NO desire to return and have someone poke around in my mouth. So, it has been 14 or 15 years since I have been in a dentist office. Before the past couple of years, I never even had a cavity, so there was no big deal...or so it seemed.

Two weeks ago, I had to bite the bullet and call a few people to have a dentist recommended to me. My back right molar had an obvious cavity for a while now, but now there was an additional little hole on the top of the tooth. It wasn't hurting at all, but it was annoying anytime my tongue would accidentally hit that area. I was shaking when I called to make the appointment, but I got it set for last Monday.

I had a full set of x-rays taken. I felt like an idiot. I cried during the x-rays because all of the horrifying memories came back to me and I was worried I was going to be fussed at big time for lack of care of my teeth (my pediatric dentist used to yell at me each time I would come in as well as pull a tooth or two each visit with little numbing involved). I honestly had convinced myself that I would go in and be told all of my teeth need to be removed. I brush my teeth, honest! Twice a day in fact. However, apparently those routine check-ups are a must for me and I didn't do that.

Well, the news was not that bad, but it wasn't great either. I have 8 cavities...well, 9 if you count the one wisdom tooth that popped through while I was pregnant with Cassidy. The one I was worried about and that forced me to make the appointment was the worst of them all. The majority are tiny. He also said that he was unable to tell from the x-ray whether or not the root was effected, and that he could tell more once he got in there and worked on it. He also recommended I see an oral surgeon and have the top left and bottom right wisdom teeth removed. So, the appointment was set for today to fix two cavities on the bottom right side.

I have been scared out of my mind seeing as all experiences with my first dentist were painful. This dentist seemed nice and I had heard he was very patient. All I had to do was raise my hand and he would stop then and there no matter what. Having never had a cavity filled before, I had no real idea what to expect.

I got in there and had to have 2 sets of shots to numb me. The first set was ok, the second set was a little uncomfortable, but not horrible. After I was all numb, the decay was removed. That back molar does have the decay very close to the nerve and when he hit the nerve, OH MY GOODNESS I about jumped out of the chair. It was very sharp pain that radiated through my jaw. He did it two more times, and then stopped and filled the two teeth - one with a composite and the other with a temp filling.

When we were done, he told me if I want to save the tooth I will need a root canal and if I'm not worried about it then it will need to be extracted. He did not give any pros or cons for either scenario, so I have no idea what I will do. He said we will talk about it once we get the rest of the cavities taken care of.

Jacob is currently studying Ancient Egypt. We are reading "Mummies in the Morning" from the Magic Treehouse series. He is really loving it! We discussed pyramids, reviewed a little about what we learned about King Tut, talked about mummies, and went over some vocabulary with various exercises. My favorite part so far was taking a virtual tour of Kufu's pyramid. Turns out it is the same pyramid my father visited many years ago when he was in the navy. Here's a link:
Explore a pyramid

Another thing Jacob is really excited about is the hieroglyphs generator we found. He translated his name and we printed it out. Here's the link we used:
Hieroglyph Generator

I am trying to arrange a time for us to visit a museum with an exhibit on Ancient Egypt.

Joshua has been doing pretty well with socialization classes. We finally got someone from our insurance company to answer the phone and agree to look into doing a single case agreement with our psychologist. They decided it won't be a problem so they are drawing up the contract. I am so happy to hear it!

We took a day trip to see some relatives on Silas' side of the family, Sally and Mike. We had a nice time despite my being under the weather. Jacob had fun playing Legos with their 13 yo son. Joshua took a few minutes to adjust and was fine soon after. He loved playing with their daughter, Melissa. Elena was the same way. Cassie took the longest to adjust, but by the end of our time there, she was fine and seemed to be enjoying herself. The funniest thing though was when Sally said Josh seemed to be the most social out of the bunch. I laughed and told her how ironic it was that she would say that seeing as he is the one that is autistic. LOL So I guess those socialization classes are working better than I even realized they were!