knitting librarian

AJ had a bad evening. When I picked him up from school, he started by telling me he was hungry. He only had “some lunch” and “a little bit of snack” and he needed another snack. I checked in with John and decided to feed AJ dinner early and I would wait to eat with John. AJ finished his main dinner (biscuit and gravy) and wanted a piece of candy. He came back with a piece in his mouth and a roll of smarties that he wanted to eat too. I told him maybe later since he already had candy in his mouth. He got huffy but eventually asked for more dinner or “something else”. I told him he could have carrots or fruit. He ended up having a pudding cup. Then he wanted the candy again. Still no. He could have some fruit when Daddy and Mommy had their dinner. We had a total meltdown.

I put him on the naughty step and he continued to squawk. I told him that he could settle down or go up to his room. He was getting close to calming down and I suggested he go get his jammies on which started a fresh bout of screaming and wailing. I went over to take him up to his room until he calmed down and he had his arms wrapped tight against his body in case I was going to pick him up or give him a swat. I told him I wasn’t but that didn’t seem to matter. We went upstairs and I put him on his bed. I told him that he could stay there until he calmed down, then I wanted him to get on his jammies and he could come back downstairs. Crying and squawking continued. I called up and asked if he wanted the neighbor to call the police…he got a little quieter, but not much. When John got home, he asked what happened, I gave him a quick synopsis and he went up to check on AJ. He’d thrown a few things around his room, which I told him he would lose if he did that. When he was calmed down, I went up to change Zoe and picked up the items he’d thrown. He’s so darn honest that he helped me find the other things he’d thrown.

He changed into jammies and came down to eat his fruit while John and I had dinner. (Zoe ate while he was upstairs having a fit.) We all sat at the table—Zoe had sweet potato puffs, AJ had his mandarin oranges and we ate our leftover biscuits and gravy.

After that, it was time for early bedtime. AJ went relatively easily, bathroom, wash face, take vitamin, brush teeth, book, prayers, kisses and lights out. He really wanted a second book but he didn’t manage to convince me. While I was up there, John was calling up “Kim, as soon as you’re done you need to come down and see this!”

When I got downstairs, I found Zoe on the couch rolling from her back to her tummy reaching for her bottle. Apparently we found the right carrot finally! So the evening ended on an “up” as Zoe makes one of those missed milestones finally!

For a variety of reasons, I decided to use my blogger blog for my school library learning posts so I transfered everything there earlier this evening and did one more post and signed up for the project through the CSLA website since I wasn’t allowed to be in on the PSLA one this spring.

After a week, I finally got confirmation from the doctor that everything is all right with Zoe’s hips. I called on Tuesday to see if the report was back and they told me it was but that the doc hadn’t had an opportunity to look at it yet. He was supposed to call me on my cell phone Wednesday night after he was done seeing patients for the day. Even knowing that, every time my phone rang at work with an “outside line ring” my heart jumped. (I didn’t realize I was as tense and worried as I apparently was.)

I never did hear from him yesterday, so today I called to check on the results or at least whether he’d had a chance to look at them. The receptionist or nurse who answered checked with him because there wasn’t a notation in the chart and she said that everything was fine. I did ask her to please check with him to find out whether he’d felt anything out of the ordinary when he checked her hips before the x-ray or whether it was just to see what he could see. Tonight I got the call-back on that and he was only checking because of the lack of movement we were seeing. So, we just need to get her working harder on moving!

I guess the “Princess of all the Babies” (as AJ calls her) is going to have to stop sitting pretty and realize that things won’t always just come to her, she’s going to have to make some effort too! Apparently, since inertia has been working for her, there’s no motivation to move!

Thank you to the people who’ve expressed concern and support and shared their stories. I really appreciate all of it.

Today was a holiday and therefore I was off work. Because my parents (our usual babysitters) go to Florida for the winter, in the past, this has been a date-day for John and me—but somehow I forgot that this year and didn’t suggest that he take the day off. I remembered last night about 10pm—too late for him to schedule a vacation day. Oh well! Maybe I’ll schedule a personal day for next month and see if we can work that out instead.

I spent much of the day in bed reading and dozing. I did get up and watch the last two episodes of Private Practice I had stored on our TiVo and picked up a cheese steak sub for lunch—yummy!

While I was watching I did some skimming of email and was surprised to read someone’s comment that their child’s preschool was closed today “like anyone in her school even cares about the holiday.” It got me thinking—mostly because I was offended by the comment—how could anyone be that ethno-centric that they didn’t see that Martin Luther King, Jr. did things that benefit our country. This, combined with something I heard on the radio saying that even today, people don’t know what King’s “dream” was, just hit me as sad and wrong. One of the lines from King’s “I Have a Dream” speech that has always stood out in my mind is the statement, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

I hope that day comes too, but I see many people who still make judgments based on color—whether they are black or white. I’ve had a student accuse me of recommending a book to him “because I’m black and there’s a black guy on the cover of that book.” I went on to tell him about the book and that I’d read it and that it was one of my favorite books (true). My booktalk did convince him to check out the book and he ended up talking to his friends about the book. It’s still one of my most popular books and I recommend it equally to all students. When he came over to the computer to check the book out, I very quietly pointed out to him that by jumping on me like that, he’d done to me exactly what he accused me of doing—judging me unfairly without having any information about me. He acknowledged that I was right, he had. The fact that he recommended the book to others and I had kids constantly streaming in to borrow or get on the waiting list for the book told me that I’d done a good job of matching him to the right book.

There’s a saying posted in my library that says “Character is who we think we are, reputation is who others think we are.” I hope that my students understand that I look beyond their skin or eye or hair color and see who they are.

Zoe still has a little bit of a fever tonight; it was about 100.6 at 4 this afternoon. Since she’s eating normally and looks perky, I guess the doc’s not concerned any longer…about that. (It’s always something, right?)

Today was her “well child” visit. We went through all of the milestone questions and she’s doing almost everything.  But, since she’s not crawling or pushing up and when he tried to get her to stand for him she didn’t do much with her legs, he decided he would check her hips again. She screamed as he twisted her hips in unnatural directions. He didn’t feel anything but decided to “take a picture of them”—it took me a few minutes to realize we were having another xray! DUH mom!

The xray showed that they were symmetrical but he felt her thigh bones were seated about 1/2 inch higher in the hip socket than he thought was normal. He’ll have a radiologist look at it and if necessary, he’ll either refer us to an orthopedist or a neurologist. A neurologist?? Ack! He did say that since the pushing/standing was the only milestone she’s behind on he probably won’t refer to a neuro, so I feel a little better, but I was trying not to be alarmed either. I’m proud of myself because I haven’t been googling, but I am wondering does this mean we could be headed toward crutches or a wheelchair/scooter. I need to stop going there mentally, and I know we’ll do whatever we need to do.

I’m mostly not concerned because she jumps like a kangaroo in her exersaucer and her jumper. She just has no interest in moving yet. She’ll lay on her back and be content. She might scoot up or down or in a circle, but she doesn’t roll to her tummy (it’s happened I guess maybe 5 times, but I’ve never seen her do it.) She doesn’t push up on her tummy, she’ll just roll over to her back.

Anyone have anything reassuring to say? Crawling apparently isn’t a check-off milestone, so he says he’s not worried about that. I don’t know how concerned he is about the hips/standing thing. Apparently I’m a bad judge of what he is and isn’t concerned about.

Well, Zoe went to go see her BFF Dr. Gray today. She had a fever of 100 when she woke up from nap and was flushed. I picked her up about an hour later (took that long for end of my day and to get doc called, travel home to pick her up, etc.) and when we were at the doc’s her temp was up to 102 and her legs were bright red and hot. No ear infection, throat culture for strep came back negative, no open sores (BFF thought it might have been a skin infection—like I’d miss open sores!)

So, we started antibiotics tonight that are not on WalMart’s $4 list. It was $40 with insurance If her temp hasn’t dropped tomorrow and/or her legs are still bright red, we go for bloodwork to rule out other unknown problems. She was snuggly tonight which was nice, but I’d rather she was active and happy. I can give her more tylenol in a few, so I’ll give her a bottle and hope she’s feeling a little better. Poor baby. I hate when they’re sick!