Coping mechanisms

I've mentioned before that Sam struggles with anxiety. He's always been a little tightly wound, but after he started having asthma attacks at night, he really started getting panicky if I wasn't right there with him. Honestly, I don't blame him. I cannot imagine how terrifying it would be to wake out of a sound sleep and not be able to breathe.

When I took Sam in for his six-year well-child visit, I mentioned the nightly panic attacks to the doctor. I also talked about his strange moods (when he is upset or embarrassed, he lashes out and can become almost violent, he is so angry at whatever he's feeling). I also talked about how rigid he is with routines...to the point where he has to do things in a certain order, or he can't function.

I love our doctor. She always listens carefully, instead of dismissing me as a paranoid mother. She suggested we try a mild anti-depressant. Primarily, she wanted to help stop the panic attacks. But she also felt it could help his mood swings and his OCD.

So, Sam takes a very small dose of a liquid antidepressant at night. He can't stand the way it tastes, so we have to bribe him with apple juice. At first, I wasn't sure it was working. I'm still not convinced we have the dosage right. But my brother-in-law, John, (the pharmacist) advised me that since this is a behavioral issue, not a chemical imbalance, it can take a few months for the medication to work to its full potential. That made me feel better.

And we are seeing some improvements. Sam has slept through the night the past two nights. He didn't wake up, convinced he was going to be sick. No screaming, crying, or pounding on doors when he can't find a parent.

We are also learning some coping mechanisms. If I leave Sam in his room at bedtime, he gets up repeatedly, worrying that he is going to be sick and that I won't be there to help. So, Bill and I have been taking turns simply sitting in his room after the lights are out. Sam doesn't have a reason to worry and he goes to sleep within minutes.

Sam has also discovered that additional light is soothing to him. So, as you see the in picture below, he went ahead and decorated the bunk beds with all of his Christmas lights. It is insanely bright in there, but as you can clearly see, he is sound asleep. I unplug the lights before I go to bed.

Bill asked Sam if he was sleeping in a disco. I asked Sam if he felt the runways were lit properly. TJ grumbled that it was too bright. Then he fell asleep.

Saturday Humor

Last night, Bill came home from one of his two-day trips to Detroit. He came in the house and greeted the boys with enthusiasm, like he always does. He went up to Sam, gave him a big hug, and said, "Sam! I missed you!" Sam looked at him calmly and said, "I know."

This afternoon, Nolan climbed on my lap and began complaining about his nose hurting. He wanted me to rub it. But then he continued his sad tale, telling me that where it hurt was on the INSIDE of his nose. I said, "So, you want me to run on the inside of your nose?" "Uh huh". I took a pass on that one.

It is about 11 p.m. TJ just staggered in my bedroom. He didn't say a word, just kept making little squeaky grunts at me. He was leaning to the side and had one eye shut. He was doing a pretty good impersonation of the Hunchback of Notre Dame. I asked him several times what was wrong, and all I got in response were the little grunts. I finally got off the bed, walked over to him and guided him back to his bed. He climbed up, laid down, and went back to sleep. He does that every once in awhile. It is highly doubtful he will remember any of this in the morning.

Mr Lovable

99% of the time, Nolan is a lovable sweetheart. He's very affectionate and quick to tell me how much he loves me.

Nolan is also a very sweet and loving cousin. Last week, he spent a considerable amount of time playing with Charlotte, with Miles, and with Allison. He is quite patient and kind. I think he would have made a wonderful big brother.

This is my first attempt at uploading pictures onto my blog from my phone, so we will see if this works. But here is Nolan kissing Allison, hugging Allison, and then you see how Allison felt about all of the attention. I love these kiddos!

(I cannot get the pictures in the correct order, but you get the idea!)

Sam Baron and the Case of the Missing Underpants

Last week, we encountered a mystery of epic proportions while at Cran-Hill. I still haven't figured it out.

For the first four days, Sam slept on the bottom bunk in the back of my parent's camper. After that, he joined me in the pop up. So while he was in my mom's camper, it meant I was not there to see him get dressed in the morning.

I had to do some laundry on Tuesday, because Nolan's overnight Pull-up failed (a rather common occurrence, unfortunately). So I gathered up everyone's laundry and headed to the facilities provided by the camp. When I was folding laundry, I noticed Sam had only one pair of underwear in the wash. He should have had two pairs. I was puzzled and asked my mom to keep an eye out for the missing pair.

Fast forward to Friday night. I had gotten Sam through the camp shower, walked him and Nolan back to our camper, and put them in bed. No more than 5 minutes passed between when I walked in the camper to when I walked out. I came out and laying in plain sight in the grass was a pair of Sam's underwear. It was NOT the pair he had been wearing that day (trust me--it was different Lego Star Wars characters). I asked John, Amanda, and Nate if they knew where this pair had come from, but they had no idea what I was talking about. I was (and still am) completely confused. Did this pair fall out of the sky? Was this the missing pair from earlier in the week? Where had they been hiding and where did they come from?

Things only got more strange the next day. I did more laundry. Sam should have had 4-5 pairs of underwear in the wash. How many did he have? Two. The pair I found outside, and the pair he had taken off that morning in the pop up and I set in the laundry basket. Where is the rest of his dirty underwear? After I got back from the laundry room, I asked Sam if he had been changing his underwear every day. Sam was highly insulted and insisted that he had been. So, where are all these other pairs? Will my mom find them in some unusual place when she empties out the trailer? Why, oh why, can Sam not use the laundry basket??

And the biggest question of all--do I want the missing underwear to be found? :-)

So smart it's scary

The boys have gotten so dirty during our week camping, that showers have become part of our evening ritual. Cran-Hill has two family bathrooms, which means there is a private shower, toilet, and sink in a bathroom. And a bench for me to sit on while Sam and Nolan play in the shower. I couldn't live without that bench. The ventilation in the family bathrooms is pretty bad and it gets so hot in there I can hardly stay upright.

(TJ, by the way, has informed me that he is too old to shower with his brothers, so he has been showering on his own every night. My baby is growing up. Sniff, sniff)

So tonight, Bill is in the bathroom helping me. He's toweling off Nolan and I am drying Sam. Out of the blue, Sam says, "Mom, when you are 65, I will be 35."

I stopped toweling him and just stared at him. I asked him how he knew that. He said, "Oh, I just thought it up right now." I looked over at Bill, and I could tell he was double-checking the math in his head. But Sam was exactly right.

I told Sam that he was so smart it scared me. He was very confused by that statement. I laughed and told him he could keep on being smart, even if I was scared.

Sounding it out

Last Sunday, TJ was amusing himself by filling out the communication card in the bulletin. He was filling it out as though he was the adult. He decided to use his given name, rather than his nickname. But his name isn't exactly easy. He carefully wrote 'T-h-e-o' and then paused to think the rest over. He glanced at me, gave me a proud smile and finished with 'D-O-O-R'. I couldn't help it. I started snickering. Theodoor? He looked miffed and said, "What? That's how you spell 'door'!" I have had a difficult time explaining to him since then that names aren't always spelled the way they sound. And besides, he isn't a type of door.

Parental Control

I recall that when I was a 'tween' and in my early teens, the big controversy on television was MTV. Several of my friends' parents blocked that channel so it wasn't available to my friends or their older siblings. We didn't have cable until I was in high school, so i was fairly oblivious to the controversy.

These days, MTV seems almost tame. Everyone knows they primarily show reality TV. You're pretty hard-pressed to actually find a music video on that channel. What's the big controversy in the Baron Household? Cartoon Network. Yes, that's right. Cartoon Network. It sounds like such a kid-friendly channel. You wouldn't think there would be anything inappropriate on Cartoon Network, or if there was, that it would be on later at night. Well, you'd be wrong if you assumed that. There are a few shows we don't mind--Lego Ninjago is fine, and I'm fine with the 'classics', like Loony Toons. But TJ has stumbled across more than one show where the language is questionable, the plop lines make me uncomfortable, and there are multiple sexual innuendos. Yes, on cartoons. And we aren't talking about Beevis and Butthead, here. These cartoons seemed to be geared toward elementary-aged children!

Bill and I have repeatedly asked TJ NOT to turn those shows on. But TJ just couldn't control himself. And Sam and Nolan had seen a few of those episodes too. So we finally blocked the channel tonight. We are still DVRing Ninjago for TJ, but it's under the block. So, we have to enter in a passcode each and every time he wants to watch an episode. It will be a huge pain in the butt. But it will be worth it. If we don't start putting our foot down now,, it's just going to get worse.

Ugh. Mail.

Remember when you were a kid and it was so exciting to get mail? Well, it just isn't that way once you are an adult.

Case in point...today's mail:
1. Our Charter internet bill. We are locked in at a monthly rate of $39.99. So imagine my excitement when this month's bill is $74.99. Why is it higher? Well, Charter billed us for a service call. We had been having consistent trouble with our wifi. Bill replaced the router but the problems continued. He finally had Charter come out and take a look at it. Turns out it was THEIR problem. They were feeding way too strong a signal into the house. Since the problem was outside the house and was their responsibility, we were not supposed to have been billed for it. and yet, there it was. Bill grumbled quite a bit and said he'd be having a chat with Charter tomorrow.

2. We got our Explanation of Benefits for our trip to the chiropractor three weeks ago. We have an H.S.A. plan and we finally hit our deductible for the year. That means the appointment should have been covered in full for the entire family. But for some reason, all five of our appointments were processed as an out-of-network visit, meaning Blue Cross didn't pay a dime of it. Ugh! Now I have to track down someone at the chiropractor's office (and of course they are closed until next week) and ask them to resubmit the claim. Otherwise, I have a bill of nearly $200 hanging over my head.

3. This one was my personal favorite. I received a letter from the Spectrum Health Weight Loss Clinic letting me know that a certain doctor was no longer participating in bariatric surgery. I would need to see someone else in the practice.

Um. What? I have never in my life consulted a weight loss physician, especially regarding bariatric surgery. Is someone trying to tell me something?

Like I said, mail isn't any fun anymore.

Really observant? Or really weird?

Over the weekend we went to Illinois to visit our relatives. Once again, we found ourselves using a variety of public bathrooms. And Sam said something that surprised me. As we walked into each bathroom, he would check right behind the seat and he would make a comment. "That's the same as ours." Later, he said, "That one is the same as Auntie Boo's." He was commenting on the brand of toilet! Are you kidding me?? What's even more strange (or maybe not--this is Sam we are talking about) is that I think he was right each time he made an observance.

I'm still trying to decide if I am in awe of him or completely baffled by him.

What brand is your toilet?