As witnessed by Granny Cathy today.
Cameron and Evan standing at the open playroom window looking out at the yard and drinking from sippy cups of water. Cameron looks at Evan's water and says "Share!". Evan hands over his cup of water and takes Cameron's cup. They continue to stand at the open window drinking their cups of water.
I am sitting in the lobby of the veterinarian's office. I am with Chewie. Pleasant quiet music is playing. There is a tropical fish tank. The light is dimmed. We are waiting for his ear to be looked at. It's just me and my calm 110lb furry chicken. It is peaceful and relaxing here. I might spend the night. Chewie does not plan on joining me.
Recently I've been noticing more resistance from Cameron when I want or need him to do things. It's usually over things like holding my hand when walking in the parking lot, or putting him in his high chair for meals, or for wanting something that is not safe or appropriate for him to have in his mischievous little hands. They are short little outbursts with lots of pulling or tugging or pushing by Cameron and a fair bit of maniacal giggling because he knows what he's doing is not right. But it's always quickly resolved or he's easily distracted by something and forgets what he was trying to accomplish.
Tonight however was probably his very first full fledged tantrum. We were sitting in the kitchen, my husband and me sitting on opposite sides of the kitchen table with a boy in a high chair in front of us, trying to feed them dinner. Cameron had been sucking on a Pepperidge Farm Goldfish pretzel. He had been using the pretzel as a diversionary tactic to avoid taking the spoons of food that I was feeding him, a common trick the boys both use often. I took the pretzel away and put it on the table next to me. Instantly Cameron screamed "Want goldfish! My goldfish! More goldfish! No! No! No!" at the top of his lungs while kicking his chair and banging on the tray.
Yes, I caved. Instantly. Like a house of cards in a strong breeze. I immediately handed back that goldfish. And he bit a piece off and chewed it up and swallowed. And then he did it again. Very tiny bites, chewed 36 times each before swallowing. Until that pretzel was gone. Luckily between every two bites he let me feed him a spoonful of his puree and he managed to eat all 3oz of it before our 30minutes was up. *sigh*
It's not like that was the end of the world for me to let him just finish the pretzel, but if I let him just focus on the pretzel then it takes away from the very limited amount of time I have to keep him in the chair (no more than 30 to 40 minutes max) to get him to consume measurable sustainable calories including his milk. The whole meltdown only took maybe 6 seconds? With a lot of hands down holding and coercion and Blues Clues on the television it took all 30 minutes to eat one goldfish pretzel and 3 oz of puree.
I could have just said "Take three bites and then you can have it back" as part of the reward for eating but I didn't. The thought didn't even cross my mind until the moment had already happened and I'd already caved and handed back the pretzel. Typing this now I'm thinking of a dozen ways to have changed the outcome of that scenario. I must really be off my game, but the new begging and whinging behavior, the suddenness of the outburst, the conviction, the screaming with near tears really caught me off guard.
If that's a temper tantrum indicative of my future, and I'm guessing that was super mild, I am so, so, so very screwed.
At bedtime tonight we had some great entertainment to burn off the last minute pre-bedtime giggles. Drew was juggling bouncy balls which thrilled Evan. I'm quite sure that had he been wearing big boy undies instead of a diaper he would have peed himself silly while screaming "Guggling! Daddy Guggling!" Meanwhile Cameron would bring to me his Fisher Price radio,look at the buttons with a serious expression and say "Howbout...." (long pause) "Itsy Bitsy Spider song?! Here comes!" and then press the button to play the Itsy Bitsy Spider song. At this point he'd pick up a toy microphone and sing the song into it. We did all five songs on the radio this way, the whole family singing along while Daddy and Evan "guggled". So much fun.
This morning Cameron grabbed a long thin scrap of paper we'd been playing with, lifted up my shirt and said "I plug you in, Mommy." And then he pretended to plug his paper feeding tube into my imaginary G tube mickey button. He did have a moment's pause looking around for my button and a quizzical look on his face when he didn't find what he knows he and his brother have on their bellies. It was a very quick moment and then he moved on to something else completely forgetting what just happened. It was our first encounter that he realized that I am different that him.
I took the boys to the eye doctor for their 2 year exam and it went amazingly better than it did the last time we were there when they were about 8mos old. They walked in on their own two feet, they were able to interact and show the doctor their ninja swatting skills every time he tried to put his hands near their face. I had to explain that this is because of their oral aversion. It was very interesting to see his ability to use thousands of happy meal toys (quite an impressive collection I might add, many were so cool I was playing with them for fun) just like the therapists do in the feeding program to get the boys to take bites. The doctor had never heard of feeding therapy like this and so we swapped techniques on toddler distraction for a few seconds while the boys tried their best to destroy his office. I love this eye doctor because not only has he seen the boys since they were 1lb and 2lbs and only a week old, he's just a really nice man who understands how kids, especially toddlers, work. If you ever need an awesome Pediatric Ophthalmology specialist send me your email to Taylo2Babies@gmail.com and I'll forward you his information.
The results of the examination are that at the moment we are officially free and clear of two of the primary prematurity eye problems, ROP (Retinopathy of Prematurity) and Strabismus (cross-eyed or wall-eyed). But we are definitely on track for the third and less worrisome of the three, nearsightedness. The boys had to have their eyes dilated and the exam confirmed that they are both slightly near sighted. (And as usual with almost all their medical stats, with the exception of size and weight, they are near sighted to the exact same degree.) Sure as hell could of fooled me, they seem to see EVERYTHING no matter how far or how close it may be. The doctor said that they are entering the "stabilizing stage" of child growth where their eyes will not change much for a long period of time. But he did say that they will need to come back in two years or right before they start pre-school/kindergarten so that if we need to get glasses that they can get used to wearing them before classes start. So it seems that it's likely, though not guaranteed, that they will both need glasses by the time they go to school.
This is not really a big deal at all. Everyone in our family wears glasses, so it seems inevitable that this would happen. I am just surprised that they might need glasses much earlier than I expected.
Every parent has those moments when they go in to check on their sleeping angels before going to bed only to smell something unpleasant and realize they need to wake the child and do a quick dirty diaper change. I just had a moment like this but it's not like what you'd imagine it to be.
Not 30 seconds after publishing my last post about not jiggling the babies when I hear a little cough from Evan over the monitor. I think, well it's almost the end of his feeding pump bolus right around the time he would puke in his sleep, so I better get up there and turn the pump off and give him a little break. I get in the room and he's sleeping peacefully. But I smell a very distinctive smell. Not the smell of poop. No, that would be easy. It's the smell of formula. Poor Evan is snoring away peacefully while laying in an enormous puddle of very cold formula. His diaper is soaked, jammies are soaked, blanket is soaked, the pillow is soaked, even the waterproof sheeting is soaked in ice pack chilled formula.
Today I blogged about how if I say it out loud that the boys haven't puked in a while, they go and puke within 24hrs. But there is always a silver lining to every cloud right? Here's the silver lining from today's earlier post.
Evan has been very agressively trying to make himself throw up during meals, regardless of what we feed him, how fast or slow we try to feed him, or whether it's a solid (puree food) or liquid (milk, juice, water). He gags and retches at all the foods we feed him (nothing new or different or strong), and after the puke at nap time I was pretty certain that we were going to be seeing more puke with his increased attempts to make himself vomit during meals. And when I say increased attempts at puking I mean that two weeks ago he never attempted this kind of behavior, but as of this week he tries between two and eight times a meal to make himself sick. I will try to video tape his new behavior tomorrow during breakfast to show you how subtle this kid works. But our therapists from today's session witnessed it and both confirmed it was behavioral and not an illness or reflux.
So back to the silver lining part. Tonight Evan drank EIGHT ounces of whole milk and ate FOUR ounces of stage 2 lentils and rice puree. And then he threw up. But that's okay, he finished off another ounce of milk after he puked. That's a total of THIRTEEN ounces of heavy liquids/purees in his tiny belly. And the puke was likely triggered by his self induced gagging and retching as well as the fact that his belly has never been that full in his entire life.
And not to be too outdone by his little brother, Cameron ate three and a half ounces of sweet corn casserole stage 2 puree and SIX ounces of whole milk. That's more in one sitting than he's ever consumed in his life either. And luckily he did not throw it up.
We have a serious joke in our house. Don't jiggle the babies.
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