There's Always a First

It's an unfortunate fact, but undoubtedly there has to be a first time for everything.I've always considered us so blessed to live here. In a place where you enroll your black child in school and the other parents are EXCITED that their children GET to have a black child in their class. Really.
Where you can visit the local children's museum and the staff photographer follows them around the entire time hoping to snap a shot for their website.
Where strangers all think your child is cute, and sweet, and precious even thought he is being anything but at the moment.
And you can spend a lot of time floating in a world filled with rainbows and unicorns, because all is right and good. Until some ignorant person reaches up with their sharp pointy fingers and pops your little bubble.Because they see a photo of your child, and stick their grubby finger on his face and say, "who is the brown kid?" Because no one could possibly know WHICH kid she is asking about when she is looking at a photo of two children, one of which is HERS. Because when you physically touch the child in question in the photo you still need to add the adjective "brown" to differentiate that child from the other one pictured. Because simply saying "that kid" wouldn't do?
Not that "brown" is offensive. Of course it isn't. In fact it's often a compliment. I spent many hours of my youth desperately seeking a bit more brown in my complexion. Not that we don't use the term "brown" on a regular basis around here either. Of course he's brown stupid! Now for future reference. When searching for the appropriate adjective to identify my child from the group, next time you may start with unbelievably adorable, ridiculously smart or unbearably funny. Perhaps you could try beautiful, charming, enchanting, darling, delightful, charismatic, engaging, enthralling, fascinating, stunning or winsome. If none of those are your style, I'd take exquisite, delectable, irresistible or phenomenal. If all else fails, perfect will work just fine thank you.

Things that Made Me Scream Today (silently)

1) My insurance company denying Ashi's claims for the last set of labs because "we do not cover medical tests for routine physicals for work, school, sports, camp or insurance approval". Yeah, that's it. My two-year-old was getting an HIV test for his new life insurance policy. Morons. I have spent so much time on the phone with my insurance company over the last 7 months that they don't even ask for my ID # anymore.

2) My internet service provider overcharging me by $15 4 months in a row. Followed by me contacting them each month, complaining, being credited and getting it in writing that it wouldn't happen again. Guess what? It happened again.

3) The Mommy Wars. Why do we do that to ourselves? I've never participated myself, I have more at-home mom friends than working ones, so I think the whole debate is just dumb. Last night at the PTA meeting I was greeted by one of Christian's teachers (also a parent of a student), "Hey Erin, It's always so good to see you! So this is where your son goes to school all week." Okay, it totally wasn't meant to be cold and nasty like that might look in writing- but seriously? Do stay-at-home moms really think work-outside-the-home moms LIKE missing out on EVERYTHING their kids do during the day? I come to the PTA meetings, I spend HOURS cutting out and assembling learning aids at home, I write notes to the teachers and I read everything that comes home in his backpack. But no, I can't drop him off or pick him up because I work 8-5 on the opposite side of town. I really don't need to feel guilty about that, I've got enough guilt to keep me busy for a while.

Then this afternoon (I took the day off) the same person asks me if I think it's harder being home with Ashi all day or working, because her friends tell her it's easier to go to work. I think I might have actually scoffed at her. While yes, it's a lot of work running around after the kids all day, it's not like you aren't getting all kinds of other stuff done too! And the company is way more fun than the people at the office! I said, "For me, work days are harder, because when I get home after 5 I still have to clean the house, do laundry, have meaningful interactions with my kids, get their homework done and obsess other everything I missed all day long. When I'm home that's all done by 5 and we can just relax in the evening." Geez- let alone running errands, grocery shopping, paying bills (which I obviously did today given my first two points), cooking actual food... Can't we all just cut each other some slack? I would never tell a stay-at-home mom that they've got it easy, because they don't. I don't know anyone who has it easy- that's just life.

Bike Park

These photos are a few weeks old, back when my baby still had his hair actually. We woke up on a lovely Saturday morning, got the house cleaned, and started thinking of ways to get everyone out of there before they could mess it all up again.
Heather and I hatched a plan to take the boys over to the dirt bike park to burn off some steam. It was a great plan. I found shoes, filled water bottles, installed the bike rack...

"Hey Christian, get your bike."

No bike. He's certain he left it in the yard. I call my mom, and then my sis who were watching the kids the day before. Belinda has the epiphany while we're talking. He rode it next door to the park, and then they all went for a short walk. Christian hogged the water bottle from Ashi and drank so much he puked. They all came home and completely forgot about the bike. Needless to say it was not there by the next morning. That's what I get for living on the wrong side of the tracks- kids' bikes getting stolen from the playground NEXT DOOR!

The worst part was I totally scored that bike, a $400 bike for $30 at Goodwill (and a $12 repair). There's just no possible way to replace a deal like that.

Luckily his old bike is still workable with the seat all the way up. We filled up the tires and loaded up. Off to visit our friendly neighborhood police station to file a report. We got the nice lady officer, and Christian answered all her questions to file the report himself.

And off we went to the bike park.

Progress (In which I digress into a long rant regarding TB)

Today marks a momentous occasion. Drum roll please... Ashi finally got his first childhood vaccinations, at 20 months of age! I was starting to brace myself for the dirty looks and yet another round of suspicion from my well meaning local health authorities. You know, for being "one of THOSE parents" that doesn't get their kid vaccinated :) It wasn't for lack of trying though. Lord knows we've gone to the doctor enough in the last three months, that's for sure. But today, yes mark it on the calendar, TODAY we went to the pediatrician and Ashi WASN'T SICK! He finally qualified for his first round of immunizations. Poor kid, that's what you get for taking a whole four days between colds instead of your usual 36 hours.

Next week also marks the half-way point (we hope) in our delightful TB treatment. A few weeks ago the sputum culture finally completed (it took 7 weeks), and we were able to drop down to two drugs (in mega doses) twice weekly. The best part (okay, it's probably a toss-up because NOT having the Drug Nazi come daily is definitely a huge perk) is he got to drop the really nasty drug that has the worst possible side effects (vision damage, yuck). But before we could do that he had the pleasure of a full optical exam- did you know that really dark eyes need a whole bunch more of those dilating drops? Yep, we're learning lots of fun random things around here.

We also learned that if the doctor talks to you over the phone and then calls the hospital to tell them you'll be admitted that day, the doctor gets to bill you for "observation care", which is surprisingly expensive. And when you spend the night in the hospital in that fancy quarantine room, it's really really expensive, and the insurance company thinks it shouldn't be covered- even though we were required by law to be admitted. Yes, by law. That would be WAC 246-170-041. That's the one that requires the Drug Nazi to personally observe Ashi physically ingest every last dose of his meds. While children with special needs are being denied therapy because of budget cuts, the state is sending nurses out to dispense antibiotics- it's brilliant really.

And even though they seem happy to cash my ridiculously big premium check every month, the insurance company doesn't really have much of an urge to actually pay most of our bills. Would you believe all of Ashi's medical bills would honestly be cheaper to pay than the premiums have been? Yep. And yet I still have to fight to get anything paid. Oh ya- they even cancelled us for almost three months- whilst cashing my checks. Funny how that works, huh? But you know what else I learned recently? WAC 246-170-021(2) states "In the absence of third party reimbursement, the local health department shall assure the provision of inpatient or outpatient care, including DOT/DOPT and case management." In English, that means that even though they won't admit it when you mention that these "required" medical expenses aren't being covered, the Health Department is actually responsible for paying the bills. Yep. Funny how much more gets done when you start quoting municipal code at people.

I really find it dumb that the state is having to pay any of his medical care. But if they wouldn't insist on making it so unnecessarily expensive... Why on earth are we paying a nurse to personally observe him taking ten cents worth of antibiotics every day? It blows my mind.

But this shall soon pass. Stay tuned for Part II of my rant against all things TB. This is starting to turn into a mini series. I'll have to divert to more fun happenings tomorrow. Like pictures of toothless Joe the Hobo (that would be Christian, who will be subsisting on oatmeal and applesauce before long).

Mmmm....yummy!

Drugs! Don't those just look tasty? This is what we have to hide in Ashi's milk everyday, it gets all crushed together into a scrumptious looking red powder. Ah...better living through chemistry.










Mmm, technicolor milk, that's rad!









I just noticed it's the same color as his sweatshirt. Wow, he is one super fly guy!

So currently Ashi is still being treated for multi-drug resistant TB
(MDR TB in CDC lingo), but last week the lab finally noticed some bugs growing in his sputum from the aspiration. Hopefully in another week or so they will be able to test those bugs to determine what drugs are most effective for his strain...and...cut his meds in half! Oh that would be nice. How would you like drinking that "milk" everyday?

I actually wonder what it tastes like, it's got to be dang awful considering how many jalapenos it took to sneak those meds into his food. But there is just something magical about the bottle, he luuuuuuuvs the bottle. He's yet to get anything but adulterated milk in it, but he don't care. It's either got the chemical cocktail, or iron drops (have you ever tasted iron drops? You could gag a cow with those suckers) or poly-vi-sol, or fortified rice cereal. And most often, a combination of the above.

But other than the yucky drugs, and the nurse coming everyday (oh big brother) the biggest bummer about being sick is missing out on all the fun stuff. As soon as we sprung from quarantine Ashi had his first class of Sensational Toddlers at the Whatcom Center for Early Learning. This is sooo much fun! The kids get stripped down to their diapers to get all messy with different sensory activities- like driving trucks through chocolate pudding, painting with spray foam, playing in a pool of shredded paper, squishing gak, you name it. And then, the best part, someone else cleans it all up! They honestly cannot get too messy. It is a type-A mother's dream come true- because it's not in my house!

"Uh... you want me to touch THAT?"

Two minutes later he discovered the pleasure of licking his fingers (it's chocolate!) And the rice and beans were the biggest hit. I was digging those out of the cracks for the rest of the day.But, quite predictably, two days later he was sick. Nothin' much, just a little cold. But boy o'boy, it is no fun to have a cold when you have TB. Coughing and screaming through the night, wheezy whistling breathing, cruddy junky lungs, choking when you eat (which unfortunately ends with vomit), basically no fun at all. He's got an amazing immune system, but his lungs have trouble keeping up.

After only 2 classes, the whole flu thing starts going around (or as the cool kids say, "the swine"- but really it doesn't matter, it's a flu) and the Health Department thought it would be best for Christian to stay home from school for a while too. Elementary schools are such germ factories, it isn't that I'm not a fan of that feature, but we probably have some fresh and different bugs floating around on this side of the pond that Ashi's not used to.

So the kids have been back on house arrest for a couple of weeks now. Christian is such a trooper, he's doing really well with it, and my mom is keeping him busy. He's had some playdates with his nice clean germ free friends Brady and Jackson, his Sunday School teacher Purell's the crap out of him at church, and the weather is finally cooperating for more activities where the kids aren't going to get coughed on or touch boogers.

Unfortunately for Christian though, the coup de grâce has certainly been missing out on our Sunday morning McDonald's Playland dates with the Boyle's. It's the little things in life.

Work

I'm going back to work in the morning. This very well be my final post, sniff... Naw, my house is just going to be a disaster and I'll have to start splurging on the latte that just happens to be oh so convenient on the way to the office.

When I called in to check with the boss last week I gave him a quick rundown on all the lowpoints post-adoption (getting sick, hospital stay, TB treatment, wah wah wah), I was angling to at least make someone feel really guilty about my lousy leave of absence and other unfortunate work-related "pressures". You know what he said? He said, "Thank goodness for COBRA!" Yep. It's a really good thing it was over e-mail so I could stop myself from saying something very snarky about being relieved of my benefits. Yes, I feel so very thankful every time I write that check for my COBRA!" Oi! What a load. So what do I say when tomorrow they all ask, "So, are you happy to be back?"

It's a good thing I am so very happy to HAVE a job, a very good job. I am so happy to have a job, I am so happy to have a job, I will be a good employee, I will be a good employee, I will LOVE my job. I just happen to love my kids more, that's all. Sorry boss.

Monkey on my Back

Warning: Snarky Post Ahead

Photo credit: Sandi Heinrich Photography

No, not this little monkey. Oi, the Health Department (sorry Sabina, not personal). Just a little rant because I think this is dumb. First of all, they HAVE to OBSERVE me give Ashi his meds EVERYDAY. Okay, fine. So the nurse comes at 8 or 8:30 every morning, crushes some pills, and watches me put half of them in a bottle. I sign the paper, and she leaves. Your tax dollars hard at work here! The "doctor", who I have never met (previews of single-payer, government run, health care I'm tellin' you) makes all the decisions, and the nurse basically transmits the info over to me. Lots o' fun.

Remember the stomach aspiration procedure? Who could forget? Well no TB was found in the mucus. So that's good news, right? Oh no. That means we can't rule out any medications, we must assume he has Multi-Drug Resistant TB, and he has to keep taking all four drugs everyday. These drugs of course make him poop like a newborn on steroids too. Lots o'fun.

Then, he loses two pounds in the last two weeks. Which the doctor (who has never laid eyes on him remember) thinks is very serious. Oooh, he must be succumbing to the TB (gag). Uh huh, this child eats like a linebacker, sleeps 11 hours at night, and runs around all day long with his big 'ol pot belly hanging out (did I mention he doesn't even cough?). Yes, he must be deathly ill. Blech. The actual pediatrician, who actually examines him (novel idea), thinks he's fine. Because, maybe having diarrhea 8 times a day is making it a little hard to keep the weight on.

In the meantime, the Health Department is getting together a web cam system, so they can "observe" his medication intake without intruding on our home everyday. Yep, I feel so much less violated, thanks. Because they absolutely MUST watch him take it. Well, now that his "seclusion" is over they don't have to observe him take it on the weekends, just Monday-Friday excluding Federal and State holidays. Puh-leaze! So what if we go out of town sometime in the next 6-9 months? All this because I apparently can't be trusted to remember to give him his meds everyday. Nope, I couldn't possibly remember that. I mean, I can qualify to adopt a child, but obviously not to care for one.

Today is Saturday by the way. Someone forgot to drop off our weekend meds yesterday, or are we skipping the weekends? Hmm. (He's on the "daily" regimen, not the 2x weekly one BTW for all you medical personnel out there) We were up and ready at 8am when it occurred to me that meds hadn't been left Friday. I guess it's okay to skip two day's meds, as long as they can watch him get them during the work week. Yep, let's just medicate him on workdays, that sounds good. I'm sure that is the latest greatest treatment protocol. Because the mother can't be trusted and Uncle Sam is the one paying the doctor. I feel good about that. Really good.

Disclaimer: This post and the opinions expressed herein have nothing to do with any individual staff members at the Health Department. I realize they do not establish these regulations, they merely follow them because that is their job. So don't go causing more trouble for me.

The Homework Drama Begins...

It has reared it's ugly head again, so early in the season too. Last spring I asked C's teacher if we could just skip the weekly homework packet for the remainder of the year. Since he was going to be in Kindergarten again this year anyway I just didn't see the point in making him hate school over this stuff. It's not like we weren't going to get the EXACT same assignments again this school year. (That's one of his paper's from last spring right there. He was printing great IMO)

Here we are now, 3 whole weeks into the new school year, and in tears! It's not like there really is much here for us to do. It's about 10 minutes a night (Monday-Wednesday), plus 10 minutes of reading (Monday-Friday). C loves the math and manipulative work. I even let him do his patterns and math pages in colored pencils because I know he won't need to erase anything. But one night of the week is handwriting night. Oh joy! My boy does not like handwriting, I don't think he's too unusual either. He's just not exactly ahead of the curve on his fine motor skills, but man he can draw some mean Bionicles so I'm just not concerned in the least. But this kid HATES having to do handwriting. (Of course he doesn't mind writing notes to hang on his door that say "Keep Out", but you know that's totally different!)

A small collection of the Bionicle interpretations that grace my refrigerator. All taken from the handy pamphlet included in the box. I can even tell which one he's drawn based on the colors and weapons (I'm such a mom of a boy!)

Last year I tried to manage the trauma by doing it all on the weekend. We get the homework packet on Friday, and it's not due until Thursday. So we would plow through it on Saturday afternoon and he could just read to me every night during the week. It didn't work out quite as planned this week though because of our extra VIP duties (post to follow). Unfortunately even 10 minutes of homework on a weeknight is just not a pretty site. Little man is already in meltdown mode by the time we walk through the door around 5:30. By the time he's fed and has decompressed from his school day it's close to 7pm and he's been up since 6:30.

So tonight, Wednesday night, the last night to finish up... and we had to write the spelling words. There are only 5 of them. They have 3-5 letters each. This is not a big deal, right? Wrong.

After a little too much frustration on my part that was not assisted by the dawdling, distraction, complaining, whining, and generally lousy attitude on display, I decided we just were not going to be able to complete the task as assigned. I pulled out a simple letter printing workbook and tore out a page featuring the letter of the week.

Me: Let's just do this instead. You're having a lot of trouble, so let's try something easier for you to practice.

And all hell broke loose. There was uncontrollable sobbing, screaming, gasping, choking, puddles of tears, you name it. After much distress (and some rocking and cuddling) I finally was able to figure out what on earth was going through his very distraught little brain.

Here is a sampling of what came out of C's mouth:

"I hate school, I hate homework, I never want to go to school again, I want to do homeschool" (you and me both dude, but that's funny to hear from you)

"But I HAVE to finish all of my homework or I'll be in trouble" (Uuh, no. You're in Kindgergarten dude, not 10th grade)

"If I do that easier stuff Miss Cheryl will send me to another group (like the Pre-K group) and I'll be kicked out of Kindergarten" (Uuh, no again)

I tried to explain to him that his teacher and his Mommy really are on the same team, and Mommy is boss teacher so whatever she says goes. He wasn't really buying it, even though I just had a long conversation with his teacher this weekend about adapting his assignments to prevent this exact thing. And the sad part is that he's feeling all defeated for no good reason. His spring report card had him meeting or exceeding Kindergarten grade level on everything except his fine motor skills. And he's got a whole year to practice that one skill area while he can basically skate through on everything else. I wish he could see the beauty in that. I wish I wasn't already absolutely dreading the real homework years. There just isn't enough time between getting home, eating dinner and going to bed to properly torture your children too.

Of course he conked out extra fast (7:40pm), and yes he is still sleeping on the floor. Too bad his Mommy can't get her act together in his room either.