"Does she need a cookie?"

I know I've talked about how Kate's more sensitive than other kids. And I knew that on some level, but a couple things happened recently to drive that point home.

The ER trip. Who knows kids who are upset better than ER nurses? I mean, seriously, right? Kate was, well, upset. Okay, so picture a child you know and love and picture them upset. Now remove any form of self-soothing they may have. Now amplify their senses so that emotions are like Spidey-senses on E. That's Kate.

Kate feels things deeply. I know this. I know she has meltdowns that rival something an NBA star might do. But the ER nurses drove it home to me that Kate is not normal in the way she feels emotions when they repeatedly commented, innocently, by saying, "Wow, she is really mad." While this statement alone doesn't seem like much or even to really emphasize Kate's difference... their tone and their eyes in this showed me that my daughter was reacting even more severely than the children in pain they see everyday.

Next event: Our flight to SLC. The set up is merely take-off. Kate is happy before getting on the plane. Laughing, smiling. She is well fed with a new diaper. Kate, however, cannot stand because the plane is taxi-ing. She loses it. To the point that the women kity-corner to me actually complains to the flight attendant who is down the aisle from us implying she wants a new seat. The people around us look away, except for one man who seems drawn to the horror (later I find out he is expecting his own little one in 5 weeks, which explains that).

Kate is screaming. I'm talking B-horror movie screetchy screaming for 20 solid minutes. While screaming, she is thrashing. Throwing herself around in the seat, arching her back crazily to escape my grasp. Songs don't faze her. She throws crayons, her toys, her milk container, her juice bottle. Daddy P tries to calm her and she reaches and asks for me. Once in my arms, however, she continues her painful twisting. She scratches my arms. She bites my shoulder. She is unable to manage or contain the overwhelming surge of emotion brought on by ... having to sit.

A flight attendant comes by and asks "does she need a cookie?" Huh? My face must have said something interesting because she looked seriously put off when I said, "Uh, no thank you, she's throwing everything we give her." "Well, I just thought maybe if she had something to hold." You gotta love people for trying to help, but really? A cookie?

Eventually she falls into a sobbing lurching sleep from exhaustion.

She awakes an hour and a half later happy, smiley, and able to play and sit for the remaining hour. The only trace of the painful event is the sympathetic stories we now hear from the people around us, and the ever swelling red mark on my shoulder.

Since we've been here she's been bubbly and happy during the day when entertained, but refusing to nap or slow down. Which makes nighttime utter terror for Daddy P and I. If anyone ever made fun of a parent for focusing on naps they need to come visit us tonight. Last night Daddy P spent two hours trying to get her to go to bed. Finally we realized her nervous system was so ramped up nothing we could do with her would slow it down. So we did what we never do, and what we could hardly stand: let her cry it out. It was seven minutes of the worst type of crying ever. After that I went in and returned horsey to the crib (she had tossed him some minutes into this) and she hugged him, sobbed a few times softly, and went to sleep.

You can't help though but lie in bed wondering what you've just done. What damage all that might have caused. All I could do was tell myself that those ten minutes of crying alone couldn't have been much worse than the hour and a half of crying with us present, and that they at least led her to sleep for seven hours (which is more than she's gotten in a week).

You could say this vacation has been rough. We're very exhausted parents who are now in need of a vacation from the vacation. At least we have happy days to compensate!

First ER Trip

Where did we leave off?

Well, let's see. Kate and I went out of town for a week. When we got back, Daddy P had the stomach flu, so that was fun. We were on our own for the most part and I decided for the bagillionth time I cannot be a single mom. Or, for anyone's sake, I should not be a single mom. Kate and I had a good time of it spending mom-daughter time, but I was exhausted and the house fell apart so I was happy when Daddy P started feeling better. And, you know, I don't want him to feel crappy.

Then Kate got a flu bug. Her first real fever! When she was a baby she had a slight fever once but this one spiked at 103.6. Verifiable! We managed it at home at first since her fever was only 102, but on the third day of fever the doc called us in to check for any secondary infection and her fever was up to 103.6. He didn't find anything wrong, so he sent us home with Tylenol and that was that. Her fever broke the next day (hm, that was last Friday). The same day she got a cold and couldn't breath. So, by now, I've had two days with hardly any sleep thanks to a stinky flu bug keeping the baby up, and now she can't sleep because her breathing keeps catching and waking her up.

Over the weekend things went from bad to worse. Kate got more and more upset, slept less and less, and was a baby I'd never seen before. She was almost a gray-white and had sunken eyes. We called the on-call doc on Sunday after she hadn't urinated for half a day.

And to the ER we went for our first ER trip!

We arrived around 5pm. On the way out the door I grabbed horsey, crackers and cheerios, and a sippy cup of water. We waited in the initial waiting room just about 10 minutes before going through triage and getting sent to a "contagion free" waiting room (since Kate was no longer "sick" but just "sick"). We waited.

A clearly contagious boy came and started running around Kate. I cringed and tried not to follow around after him with a wipe disinfecting the toys.

We moved to the other, less toy-filled waiting room without the sick child. This room was filled with children who must have either had a fierce sense of adventure or a terrible sense of balance. Or both.

Someone came by with crayons and coloring pages.


Kate was fussy and uncomfortable, but managing. She was enjoying watching all the kids and tried several times to "talk" to them but they gave her crazy looks and moved on. Soon after this Kate began signing for milk. She hadn't been eating much lately and was not interested in milk so I hadn't brought any. So, Daddy P went looking.

Twenty minutes later he returns to tell us the cafeteria had closed and the vending machines only sell soda (in a children's hospital?). We continue waiting.

Another boy (about 2 1/2) comes in with his mother trailing far behind. He walks up to a little girl (about 18 months) and shoves her. Her parents see, do nothing. He shoves her again so this time she stumbles. Still, her parents do NOTHING. His Mom says to him (from about 10 feet away), "Darius, be NICE." That was it. He runs out the waiting room and down the hall. She pulls out her cell phone.

I mean, seriously?

Kate signs more insistently and couples her pleas with wails. Daddy P leaves to find food for us and milk for Kate.

Kate loses it. She continually signs "where's daddy?" over and over as she pulls me down different hallways. She finally finds the front door we came in through and then claws at me to let her out. It was great. The screaming lasted for about 15 straight minutes (which to non-parents might sound not too long, but it's just about my entire life's worth of calm and togetherness when holding a screaming child). During this a mother begins to go to each of her three adolescent children in turn and encourages them to go to another waiting room. She looks at me, quickly looks away, and picks up her things. A lady from across the room glances at me sympathetically once in a while but hides in her book. I leave.

We move our screaming to the hallway. Kate pauses for two minutes after finding a pencil at registration she can hold, but when she isn't allowed to write on the walls she drops it and resumes screaming and signing "daddy."

They call our name, Daddy P miraculously appears at the same time, and then put us in an exam room around 8pm.

From 8pm to midnight, we experience the following:

• trying to keep Kate from eating the lidocaine taped to her hands and inner-elbows to numb them
• preventing Kate from putting various objects in the five un-babyproofed outlets
• spinning on the spinny stool
• a very odd movie on the Disney channel about how good blacks have it in the US compared to South Africa called "The Color Of Friendship"
  
• holding Kate down while they put in a catheter and a rectal thermometer (not at the same time)
• realizing Daddy P is the only one Kate wants right now and he's on his own
• watching as they put an IV in my daughter's hand and realizing I'm not even dizzy (go tough momness!)
• an hour of trying to prevent Kate from pulling out the IV which she HATES (see previous OCD post) and the diaper which is covering it and preventing her from scratching herself with all of it.
• trying to help Kate sleep in a room with a machine chugging liquid into her veins, hallway ruckus, and weird lighting. she doesn't sleep by the way...

(notice IV in right arm)

Finally, the doc says all the labs look normal and she most likely got dehydrated. We were then instructed to never give a baby apple juice when they are sick (oops) but to give them anything else to make them drink (except juice).

We get home to bed around 1:30am, and Daddy P and I are about fall over. Kate sleeps until 6am and we start the day.

Two days later her color is back, she's plumped up a bit, and she slept for 5 hours yesterday at nap. She had now asked three times to go to sleep which is a very new thing. That nap sign was only used to us prior to this week. We go the pediatrician tomorrow to double check everything. She's not herself though so I'm still a bit worried. Her sleep is restless (she woke up five times last night and screamed until Daddy P calmed her down), she's cranky, and she isn't eating much. She's smiling though, and that's huge after a rough weekend.

Final conclusion for the weekend: after watching a nurse put various pokey things in my daughter, and then that same daughter still smile and engage her in silliness AND after watching the doctor slowly warm Kate up to the instruments by practicing on horsey, and being fun and kind so that after the exam Kate STILL liked her, I have decided we need a new pediatrician. One that doesn't cause Kate to scream when she merely sees him. Yep, I'm sure looking forward to that trip to the doctor tomorrow!

Kate's "Chores"

Yes yes, my obsession about order is translating down into my daughter. It does not yet seem to be making her neurotic, but at this point merely helpful. Although, she is only 16 months. Hopefully her tidy ways will not turn into something that will prevent her from cohabiting in the future. I can see the look in Daddy P's eyes though that reads something like "what have you done"... I think I first saw that look when Kate spilled some food on the table and started going "EH EH EH EH" until we gave her a towel to wipe it up... yes, yes, I know... but anyway...

Things Kate does now that she won't do at age 15:

• poop in a diaper (please.)
• pick up trash on the floor and put it in the trash can without prompting
• clean up spills with a rag
• put her plate in the dishwasher
• put her toys away when she's done with them (with reminders of course)

Mom and Dad activities

Already Kate has activities she associates with me and with Daddy P. This morning after breakfast, before Daddy P had a chance to run to work, Kate says "up" and then "ball." Daddy P promptly gets her up from her highchair and gives in to a quick game of catch. I don't think I would have guessed that "ball" would be one of the words Kate best articulates at 16 months, but there you have it. Her word list to date is "Mamamamama," "Da," "Hi," and "Ball." She's working on some others but I would say these are the words that are recognizable to strangers. We were at the grocery store last week and a women comes to stand behind us. Kate promptly says "hi" and the woman looked startled to get an unsolicited greeting from a toddler. After peering at Kate a bit she said a chipper "hi" back. Who knew with her parents' introversion my daughter would be saying "hi" to everyone she meets!

Updating

After over a week of blog silence, we're back.

Kate and I took a trip to Utah last week just the two of us, and didn't have much internet access (thus the boringness in the blogosphere). I admit, I was pretty terrified to fly alone with Kate. She must have wanted to convince me to do it again sometime because she was awesome. Even cramped on my lap with a plane full of people she was a real trooper. We didn't even have to pull out the DVD player! (Well, frankly, there was one time I would have but I couldn't reach it under the seat with her and all her toys on my lap.)

Now that we are back and settling in again I will return to my better (aka more prompt) postings. Oh, with pictures. More to come...