Spoke Too Soon

I thought Mattie was getting over his cold, but then yesterday night he developed a nasty cough and an even more runny nose.  He was up most of the night off and on with low-level crying, and told me that his ear hurt.  He perked up when the sun came up (and I think when the second dose of Tylenol kicked in), but then was feverish again by lunchtime, so Mike took him to the doctor.  He appears to have an ear infection, so they prescribed some antibiotics.  He got a dose after his nap, and seems to be feeling a lot better already tonight.

The doctor thinks it's RSV, which is slightly terrifying because that can be so dangerous for former preemies (due to lung issues). Mattie and James are beyond the age where they really worry about that (the biggest risk is in the first year, and Mattie and James had the Synagis injections to protect them at that time), but the doctor listened very carefully to Mattie's lungs, including when Mattie was having a bad coughing fit, and said that they sounded good.  He didn't think Mattie needed breathing treatments or anything like that, so that was a relief.

Puppy High Five

We had a great visit today with former babysitter N, who came by with her very talented dog, Tucker.  Not only could he shake hands, but he could also give high fives!  (Stanley didn't care about that, but he had fun playing with his new friend!)

Mattie gave N a Valentine that he and James had made, and told her that she could hang it on her refrigerator.  Then he wanted to know what her magnets looked like.  He was pleased to find out that she had an orange one!

In other news, James is scheduled for ear tube surgery next Tuesday (we don't know the time yet).  I'm glad that they were able to get him in quickly (well, depending on how you look at it) -- hopefully he'll be fully recovered from his cold by then!

P.S.   Yes, Auntie Nora, that is Cousin Daniel's dog book.  :)

Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day!

Alas, the boys are still sick, so they missed preschool and the Valentine exchange today.  (They didn't care, but I was a little disappointed!)  Last night was rough; they were up multiple times in the middle of the night, and Jamesie decided that it was playtime from 4 to 5 AM.  He was very cheerful and wide awake, but he was the only one that could be described that way!

The boys made Valentines for their babysitter N and the grandparents this weekend, but we are slackers and didn't get them in the mail yet.  Sorry!

Some things Mattie said today:

When I was putting him to bed:  "Here's a piece of my blanket for you.  You can tuck yourself in."

And later, he leaned over and kissed my arm:  "I gave you a bonus kiss!"

This afternoon, he was talking on his play telephone, and I asked him who he was calling.  He said, "The delivery man."  I asked what he was delivering, and Mattie replied, "He's delivering some cookies for you!"  I like the way you think, kid!  :)  Alas, I think he got that one from Sesame Street -- there has been a distinct lack of cookie deliveries around these parts.  


James's audiologist heard back from the ENT doc, and we're supposed to call and get him scheduled for surgery to put in new ear tubes and clean out his ears.  I'm sad that he has to have yet another surgery, but I'm glad that there's at least some forward progress in getting his ears taken care of. 

Sniffles

Usually when a cold is going around, Matthew suffers with it for days and Jamesie shakes it right off, but this time, James has had an extremely runny nose and a cough for a couple of days now. But as you can see it doesn't seem to be getting to him too much. He is still mostly his usual cheerful self, but is also more fragile than usual -- more easily frustrated and upset by little things, which is not at all typical for him. Hopefully he'll be on the mend soon!

Not this Week

These photos are from last week's trip to the dinosaur museum! :)

Last night, the boys took a long time to fall asleep. We had left the room, and then I assumed Jamesie got out of his crib, because I heard the boys talking, and then I heard Mattie say, "Tuck me in, Jamesie! Tuck me in!" (So cute!  Too bad James probably couldn't hear him.) Then there was some thumping around, so I went in and turned on the light to see two little boys right next to each other with their knees tucked under them, lifting their heads up from the pillow with expressions of equal parts feigned innocence and delight at not being asleep. :)

We gave Jamesie a chance to go to sleep on "the big bed" with Mattie, but he just couldn't settle down; he kept climbing around and over Mattie, so we eventually had to put him back in the crib.  (Though the few moments when they were lying next to each other patting each other's back was extremely adorable!)

Two Views of Transition

At age 3, James will transition out of the Early Intervention program into the Preschool program run by the local school system. (This is not an actual preschool and is not related to the boys' preschool; it's just the name of the division that serves children ages 3-5.) So, we had our first meeting with the Exceptional Children staff on Tuesday.

I found it really stressful. Mike didn't.

The meeting included our early intervention coordinator, the Preschool program coordinator, their teacher of the hearing impaired, the evaluation person, and James's current hearing therapist, Karen.

We were informed that he qualified for what is called a 504 plan due to his hearing loss. This means the school system pays for accommodations to help him hear in the classroom (for instance, an FM system for his teacher), but does not provide any therapy or other educational support. In order to qualify for those kinds of services, he would need an IEP (Individual Education Plan), and get that, he apparently needs to have a demonstrated delay or effect on his ability to learn in a regular classroom. James's current therapist disagreed with that; she said that those requirements were not intended to apply to hearing impairments, and that other counties had interpreted the regulations differently. So apparently they're going to check into that.

According to the Preschool coordinator, he would have to be a year behind in his skills to qualify. (That seems really ridiculous to us, and I think the staff there kind of agrees, but they have to follow the state rules.) Karen instantly said that there was no way that he was going to test that far behind; she hasn't completed her current evaluation of him, but at the last one he scored above average. Apparently there are some other possible ways to qualify (e.g., if he's not saying age-appropriate sounds clearly), so they're going to do a full evaluation to see what happens. I had the strong impression that these folks do their very best to get kids qualified for services if it's at all possible within their guidelines. Even though the atmosphere was a little adversarial (in the most polite way), I think they're all very nice people.  (However, I was really glad to have Karen there being such a strong advocate and cheerleader for James!)

So, I found it stressful because it feels a bit like a lose-lose situation.  Either the school system doesn't provide James with therapy that he would probably benefit from, or in order to get it, he gets slapped with a label, which makes me very very uncomfortable.  So on the one hand it would be okay if they found some problems that qualified him, but on the other hand I don't want him to have any problems!  I mean, it's clear to us that his language skills would be more advanced if he were consistently hearing well, and there are definitely some things that we worry about, but I suspect that he's still pretty much age-appropriate with maybe some gaps here and there. 

Mike, on the other hand, went into this meeting having already concluded that James wasn't going to qualify for anything, so it didn't much matter.  (And that's true; James is still going to get whatever hearing or speech therapy he needs, we'll just have to go to Durham and pay out of pocket to do it.) He was just happy to show James off and have everyone say nice things about him (which they did).

So, we'll see how it goes.  The first step, though, is to get his hearing back to his usual levels; the evaluator doesn't want to do any testing until he has "clear ears."  The ENT doc is out of town until next week, so hopefully we'll know more about a plan soon.

The White Bear Chronicles, Part II

Mattie says about White Bear:  "He can do an obstacle course.  And another one.  All by himself, with nobody holding his hand.  He's a good boy.  He listens to me.  He can do big things!"

Home Haircuts

One of the ladies in the local twins group sent out an email about her friend who had started a "come to you" kids' haircutting service.  So, we gave it a try, and she was great! 

Mike said she won the boys over with stickers and letting them pick out what color comb she used (of course Mattie wanted orange!)  And they even got a treat at the end.  :) 

James's expression is not so much due to the haircut, but because he was intently watching his Scooby Doo.  :)

Pyromania

 ...is what I call Mattie's latest piece of preschool art.

(So that must make James's "Purplemania.")

Techno-kids

From this morning...

James:  "I want monkey!  I want to play monkey computer!"
Matthew:  "Do you mean the iPad, James?"

Halftime Show

Tonight's big excitement at our house was not the Super Bowl, but our friends coming over to play -- and Mike invited C to play the drums.  Of course, Mattie and Jamesie didn't want to miss out on that, either!  (Even E joined in for a few minutes on the maracas.)

They all had a great time, and as you can see, rotated through the instruments.  C was quite pleased to have her own microphone, and Jamesie even sang some of the ABC song and Old MacDonald.

C suggested that we should invite people over to hear their band, but the adult consensus was that a bit more practice might be required first.  :)

(Of course, when we invited J & Y over, the Super Bowl was also supposed to be part of the festivities -- and we realized right before they arrived that the sound wasn't working on our downstairs TV.  Yep, not our finest hosting moment!)

Don't Rock the Boat

I thought the kids were having fun playing on the rocking gator, but I was informed that it was a boat. :)

Twin Tag

The boys were playing their own version of tag this evening. They'd stand at opposite ends of the hallway, facing each other, and then one would run down the hall and tag the other one in the chest. Then they'd run around for a minute or two and then return to their positions at the end of the hallway. So cute!

(And Mattie went poo-poo in the potty tonight and the other night -- yay, Mattie!)

Ruh-Roh

And in case all the ear stuff wasn't enough, James has also not been eating well the past few days (drinking his milk okay, but generally not interested in anything solid -- or he'll hold it in his mouth for a while and then spit it out).

But none of it seems to bother him; he's been his usual cheerful and active self.

We've been using his FM system (the wireless microphone that goes directly to his hearing aids) more to try to compensate some for the loss caused by the gunkiness, and it seems to be helping some.

Mattie once again was crying at preschool dropoff, and then stopped right away and had a great day.  (He saw a black fire hydrant and a gray fire hydrant, he says.)

My husband has added a new show to the boys' rotation -- a bit to my dismay, Mattie now really likes Scooby Doo.  (There's not even a pretense of educational content there!  He likes the one with the "haunted knight", which he called the "honked knight."  Too cute.  And there's a part in there where the word "Jameson" is written on a box, and Jamesie pointed to it and said, "That's me!"  I don't know if someone had previously said that to him, or if he just spontaneously recognized his name in there!)

And a word of warning for our fellow parents out there -- in addition to the old Scooby Doo shows that we grew up with, there's a new version of Scooby Doo out there, which to my surprise was not actually appropriate for children.  (For instance, in the episode we partially watched, one of the featured characters was a woman in skin-tight skimpy clothes with a huge bust and rear end, with the "camera" focusing on them for unnecessarily long periods of time.)  I couldn't figure out why that kind of stuff would be in there, and then I realized that their target audience for the "modern" version probably isn't actual kids, it's stoner college kids.

P.S.  The boys say thanks, Grandma, for sending the stickers!

P.P.S.  Happy Groundhog Day, y'all.  It sure didn't feel like winter around here today.

What, No Pictures?

I know, we've been too busy over the past few days to take any pictures!  Crazy, eh?

But a brief update.  Mattie cried only at dropoff at preschool on Tuesday, and was fine almost as soon as the door closed, according to his teacher (and according to him: "I didn't cry at preschool!")  So, yay! 

Today he had one of his toy animals on a train, and the horse was riding the train to preschool.  Mattie said, "It's a special day at preschool.  His mommy is coming after snack time."  (That's how we talk about the parent of the day sessions, to make it clear that mommy or daddy won't always be coming to preschool -- but hearing him say it made me a little sad that we didn't get to go on Tuesday!)

Jamesie went to the audiologist today.  His ears are still very gunked up, and the audiologist told Mike that that isn't normal, and she paged the ear doctor (who was in surgery so couldn't talk to her right then.  In case I hadn't mentioned, James actually saw the ear doctor on Monday, but unlike his previous visits, James wouldn't hold still to have his ears cleaned out or even fully examined, so the visit was basically pointless. Just flushing away another $70 for the copay and another two hours of Mike's time.)  But she assured Mike that she's going to coordinate with the ear doctor to try to get this taken care of as soon as possible (which unfortunately probably means another trip to the operating room for James).  She said that it would be one thing to be waiting around to see if this clears up for a kid who had neurological problems and wouldn't be picking up language anyway, but it's not right for a smart kid like James who wants to learn.  I'm glad she's on board, because I am so angry at how we have been dealing with this for months and months without the doc taking it seriously until just recently. 

She did a bone conduction test, and the hearing from his auditory nerve is the same as always.  But because of the gunk, he's not hearing speech until it reaches 90 decibels.  By comparison, a Google search tells me that 90 db is the sound of a lawnmower.  A LAWNMOWER.  This is absolutely ridiculous.  Have I mentioned how angry I am that poor James has been living with this for months while we're supposedly seeing the best doctor in the state?  (We have actually asked, without really pushing it, for recommendations of other doctors, but everyone seems to hmm and haw and say Dr. B is the best.  And he is a nice guy and I'm sure he knows his stuff but I think the current situation has not been handled well.)

Grrrr. 

On the bright side, James and Mike made a visit up to the NICU and saw many of our favorite nurses.  (James's primary and Matthew's primary are both expected babies in March -- how exciting!!)