Conversations with Caleb - The Teenage Edition

So, around our house we have been teaching Caleb that saying yes ma'am/sir is the correct response to a request from a person who is older than/in charge of him. Here is the actual conversation from this morning, oh wait, this can be applied to most requests we make of him:

Me: Caleb please go _________ (fill in the blank)

Caleb: O-KAY !(imagine the way you, at the age of 15 or 16, responded to your mom or dad when they asked you to do something )

Me: Um, excuse me??? (trying to get him to use yes ma'am)

Caleb: Al-RIGHT!

Me: "the look"

Caleb: (in a very meek voice) Yes Ma'am.

I have a 15 year old trapped in a 4 year old body. Somebody help me.

Update- In Other Words A Post In Which I Have No Idea For a Title

So, I've been SO bad about updating lately. Here is the latest in bullet form (ie the lazy way out):

• Piper's swallow study came back normal. She had a few penetrations, where the thinnest fluid started to enter her airway but she cleared them herself, but they were ok with that and she was cleared to consume anything and everything in every thickness/thiness.
• Piper has reached some amazing milestones this past month that I will not divulge now as her 10 month post is coming up very soon.
• I have been working a lot and like every semester, we are deep into the most busy time of the semester where students are finishing up last minute work and taking tests and finals. This just means more grading for me. Last night I returned a 5 inch pile of papers back to my students and came home with a 7 inch pile. (Evidently I have a little time if I'm measuring the height of my work to be done.)
• Caleb has been doing well and we are working on getting him signed up for fun stuff for the summer. I am really excited about summer starting and all the fun we will have.
• I have also been doing a lot of MOPS stuff lately as well as we are wrapping up the semester and year and are all changing roles. I have decided to step out of the creative activities coordinator role in favor of membership coordinator. I just had to take a hard and close look at how my current role in MOPS is affecting both myself and my family and I decided that with the coming year and new responsibilities, I needed a job that was more administrative in nature.
• Jes and I were in freak out mode for quite a few weeks there, most of the reason for my lack of posting. It's really hard to "get it together" and complete a post about whatever when you are worried about something big. What it boiled down to was my employment for the summer and whether or not I would have anything at all. While this may not seem like a huge deal, it really is vital to the structuring of our finances for the whole year. Whatever I make in the summer goes right into savings as there are months where I am working, but am not getting paid. It's strange, but it's just the way the system is set up. We just have to be prepared, so summer does that for me. True to form, at the last minute 2 classes (exactly what I needed) came up, with a little rearranging of the schedule, and they were mine.
• Jes and I are also working on our vacation. What I haven't told you about our trip? Ok, here goes. We are going to California, LA area, for a family reunion and heading to Disney Land while we are there. Then we are driving up to Oregon to spend about a week with Jes's parents there. Oh, wait, we're driving all of this too. With both kids. Yes, I know we're slightly out of our minds, but we are both trying to be optimistic and are actually looking forward to seeing DFW in our rearview mirror and the adventures that we will encounter (within reason, of course!). We leave the middle of July, but I will be working right up until the day so we're trying to get our ducks in a row before then.

Hm, I guess that's it. Oh and my last post about Stellan, he was discharged and is on his way home to his big brothers, sister and daddy as we speak! I'll be back in the next day or two with Piper's 10 month post. Sniff.

Stellan

This is Stellan. No, I don't know him personally, but I have been keeping up with his mom's blog over at mycharmingkids.net. Right this very moment he is have a procedure on his heart called ablation, basically where they go in and destroy one or more electrical pathways in order to correct a dangerous heart arrythmia. He is not much younger than my P, and this surgery comes with extreme risks, but we all know that we serve a mighty God who will protect Stellan.
Pray with me today for Stellan.

So I Was SO Wrong!

All that talk in the last post about teething and the symptoms thereof was wrong. On Tuesday morning Piper was doing her normal coughing routine to get herself all clear when I noticed that she was coughing a little too much and a little too hard for my tastes. She coughed so hard that she actually turned herself purple and lost her breath, so that was my breaking point. I picked up the phone and called our trusty pulmonologist and they were able to get us in that afternoon for an appointment.
It turns out that our girl had bronchiolitis, an inflammation of the small airways. This is not an uncommon issue for kiddos, especially ours who tend to have respiratory issues anyway, but not something that I wanted to have to deal with last week, especially since she was scheduled for her swallow study later in the week.
Oh, wait, I haven't mentioned her swallow study yet, have I? Hm.
Her test was scheduled for early Thursday afternoon, but the pulmonologist told us to reschedule if the steroids that he gave Piper didn't clear it up significantly by Wednesday night or Thursday morning. So, reschedule we did.
She's having her test this Wednesday at 1pm, if she stays well. I'm not exactly sure what we're hoping for at this point because the doctor told us that if it comes back negative then he will want to scope her airway. I'm not too keen on this step yet, so I'm not sure what to wish for here. I think we just want her to get over this hump and get well for good.
So, that's where I've been.

Of Mobility and Teeth

So, this sweet little munchkin has been keeping us up nights for the past few days and it's not appearing to improve. The problem? She's trying SO hard to crawl and those first bottom oh so cute teeth are trying to break through. She will be asleep and wake up on all fours which makes her mad. It's almost as if her brain is still trying to work out how to do it, even when she's sleeping. And the teeth, oh the teeth. She has had diarrhea, which I thought was from a new reflux med we just started, and therefore a bad diaper rash, a very stuffy nose and the cough that comes along with the drainage. The poor thing is just miserable, so you may not hear from me here for a couple of days. Not that I was all that reliable about updating.

By the way, am I the only one who thinks that she's just the cutest thing ever?

Deep Breaths...

Today the pulmonologist told me that he wanted to perform a swallow study on Piper. It was at this exact age that we had a swallow study done on Caleb and we started down the long road of health issues that came with his severe aspiration issues.
I'm trying not to freak out.
I'm taking very deep breaths.
I can't do this again with my girl,
but I will if I have to.

I'm Not So Sure I Handled That the Right Way.

I hesistate to write this because it is still so fresh and literally made me ill, but I have to get it out. Just bear with me...
Last night we went to our friend's house for their annual Easter extravaganza. We have been to these friend's house mutiple times and Caleb LOVES playing with their two youngest boys, who are near his age.
These friends of ours also have a son who is nearly 2 years older than Caleb, therefore his friends that come over during these parties are sometimes up to 4 years older than our son. Last night, while we were all sitting around waiting for the fun to begin, I heard Caleb screaming this blood curdling scream that he only reserves for times of real hurt. I, of course, hurtled up the stairs, ready to discipline, if necessary, Caleb to end the situation. I was raised that if you are in someone elses house, their rules reign supreme, so I have always erred on the side of my son being wrong unless proven right. Does that even make an sense?
Anyway, once I got up the stairs, I encountered all the older boys, aged 6-8, standing around Caleb, whom they had backed into a corner, kicking and poking at him. My mother claws came out and as I asked what was going on, one of the boys got in my face and yelled at me.
Yes, that's right, he, a 6, 7 or 8 year old, yelled at me, a 31 year old mother of two. If he were mine, I would have tanned his little hide right then, but he happened to be the child of our friends, so I did nothing.
Instead, I grabbed Caleb and took him downstairs where he was perfectly happy to hang with Jes, Piper and I and play with a toy that we swiped from the toy room.
Just typing this story out is making me nauseous and my heart rate has increased at least two fold. However, this is not where the story ends.
A little later we gathered all the kids up to go do the Easter egg hunt. The general rule is that the older kids, 5 and up, go in the back yard and the youngers go in the front. Thankfully, Caleb was assigned the front yard, so I thought we would be able to avoid the boys who were bullying him.
While we were waiting, the child of our friends started hitting and kicking Caleb when he turned on the light in the area of the house that we were all gathered in. Granted, Caleb was not supposed to do this, but all the other kids had and this child had not responded to them as such. I was so ill from the situation that had occured not 15 minutes before hand that I looked him in the eye and asked him if I needed to have a discussion with his mother. He quickly decided that he didn't want that to happen and stopped, but I was ready to leave right then and there.
My friend was not privy to this whole situation and I didn't feel it was my place to bring it up at her party. However, this is the same boy that I witnessed flip his mother off in a crowded bowling alley a couple of weeks ago and my sweet friend did nothing.
Just looked at me and shrugged her shoulders.
I am not judging my friend's mothering, as I know that any of our kids could do this, falling prey to the bad influences of the world, but I don't have to let my kid be affected by it.
In all honesty, I wanted to throttle that kid, all of them in fact. I know that a little of this is somewhat normal for kids to experience, but a group of 8 year olds bullying a barely 4 year old? What exactly have our kids been taught? Why is it that parents think this is ok (I failed to mention that another mom was upstairs, witnessed the whole pinning in the corner, and just smiled at her son while he kicked mine)? I don't think that boys will be boys, I think that parents need to be parents and teach their boys that that is not acceptable behavior.
Ok. I'll end my rant there. Tell me, though, do you think that I should have handled this any differently? Have any of y'all experienced this type of thing? What did you do?

Month 9

Please make these posts stop! My baby girl, my last baby, is 9 months old now. I just am having such a hard time wrapping my head around this, but I guess I have to just be ok with it.

I took Piper to the doctor this morning for her 9 month appointment and here are her stats:

Weight: 20lb 13oz (looking like we need to go ahead and get that new car seat REAL soon.)

Length: 29in

Head: 18.5in (she's got her Mama's head. No hats for her!)

Isn't this the cutest little girl you've ever seen??? I'm a little biased, but I think so.

Piper is still just as good natured as she's always been, but this past month, she has been so much fun. Even though her first word was spoken a couple of months ago, Piper really started babbling this month and just talks up a storm. We are constantly hearing "Mama, Dada, Baba, Nana" etc. It's really very sweet and I love to hear the words.

The fun between Caleb and Piper still continues, but each month that Piper matures, the two of them are able to play together even more. Piper has developed a love for Caleb's toys, particularly his cars. There are a set of cars that Caleb has and still plays with on a regular basis that she is just fascinated with. She loves to, of course, stick them in her mouth, but also play with the wheels. There is just something about those wheels going around that she loves to watch.

This month, Piper's sleep cycle has deteriorated drastically. I've heard something of a sleep regression that occurs around 8 to 9 months and we are dealing with that now. While she does still take naps, those have also decreased in time, for whatever reason. We are working hard on trying to reestablish the great sleeping habits that she developed prior to this age.

This month, Piper also perfected sitting without assistance. This past month, we have finally reached the point where we are confident that if we set her on the floor, she will stay sitting up. Piper rarely falls over anymore and will put herself on her tummy or back only when she chooses to. Piper is still not crawling at this point, but is really trying to get there. She can pull herself toward something and can push to get somewhere, but the actual getting on her hands and knees seems to allude her at this point. She's getting pretty close to achieving the all fours position, but honestly I'm not pushing it right now. Just the thought of two little beings being freely mobile frightens me a bit, so I'm perfectly ok with her not crawling yet.

Piper is super curious and love to look around and be held. We are going through a major case of stranger anxiety and she flips out whenever I leave the room. Piper is a very cuddly and lovy baby and just wants to be held and carried around as much as possible and, frankly, I'm happy to comply. I've become quite proficient at doing most everything with one hand and you will most often find me carrying Piper around while doing household chores at the same time. I will, on occasion, put her in her sling to give me another hand while working, but she loses patience with that pretty quickly and prefers me to not use it.

This has been a very fun month and we are so excited about what is to come. Piper is still a very easy baby, just going with the flow and loving being with her family and the feeling is mutual!