ENT Update

We finally had our follow up appointment with the ENT yesterday. He had a very basic hearing test as well. His hearing is fine, his ears just have a lot of pressure which might muffle things a little bit, but not enough to be affecting his speech or anything. The x-rays show that his adenoids are moderately enlarged, but everything else is fine. So, August 13th we'll take him to get his adenoids removed. The doc said it's about a 5 minute procedure where he goes through the back of the mouth up into the nasal area. The only scary part is he has to be under anesthesia.

He also had his speech therapy this morning. He's trying so hard to be understood. And he talks to us a lot. She thinks once his adenoids and ear pressure are better, he'll be more confident in the sounds he's making and will make big strides in talking.

We're optimistic and trying not to worry.

Bust A Move!

Our boy might have come to dancing later than most, but now he really likes to bust a move!

Over the hot weekend, we were at a local mall where he insists on running around instead of playing in the play area. We passed by A&F and he ran in there and started dancing to the music! This young guy working there folding shirts just laughed. Some young girls walking by noticed and laughed and said how cute he is.

At home, he'll insist on us turning on the music. We've long had an iPod in his room with two playlists. One is music to sleep to - solo piano stuff, old light jazz, stuff like that. The other playlists is his three kids cds and a couple of other tunes.

The other day he decided that the kids tunes were mostly too slow to dance to.

Last night I made him a new dance playlist. It has stuff like Blame It On The Boogie, You Should Be Dancin', Dancin' With Myself, a lot of KC & The Sunshine Band. This seems to have made him happy.

Threesome

By the time a baby is actually home with the parents, it's a big adjustment in some ways, but they're usually pretty ready for it. They've had nine months to plan, prepare, get advice (wanted and unwanted) stock up, and so on.

Then, you get a couple of years into this parenting gig and realize you've become part of a threesome. (Assuming you've still only got one kid.) And it's weird being part of a threesome. No one really prepares you for it.

Now, you've got this other person living in your house, wandering all over the place, making demands, getting into your stuff. You have to plan meals with and for and around them. Sometimes you have to cook things you have never and will never eat. You have to find things to do with them, things you might or might not even enjoy. I mean, parks are great and all, but every day? Even when it's 90+ degrees outside, or under 50 degrees with a cold wind? Not to mention playing all the silly games and singing all the silly songs until you're ready to shove something in your ears to make it stop.

All of this has to be worked into whatever groove you and your spouse already had going. Or, if you haven't been together all that long, the groove you hoped to have.

It's crazy. And cool. Or at least, we think it's cool. Because now we know just how boring our groove was until Noah came along.

Nice!

In the past week, there were a couple of times I put Noah in his room to play, walked out, and closed the door. I needed a few moments to catch my breath, calm down, regroup. He didn't mind at all! I am SO happy about this.

This morning, I failed to shower before he woke up. So, we were in his room playing, I told him to have fun and I'd be back. That was over 15 minutes ago. He's still playing happily in his room alone. And I'm not worrying that he'll die while doing it!

I do think it'll be cool when we can trade the baby monitor for walkie-talkies, so when he wakes up we can tell him to chill, we'll be there shortly!

Speech Update

Noah had another visit from the speech therapist this morning. After her recommendation that we see an ENT - and being right about that - and some of her observations today, I'm impressed with her knowledge. I'll come back to that in a minute.

Saturday, we took Noah to get an x-ray of his neck so the ENT can check and see if his adenoids cause too much obstruction. There's a new medical facility that opened up a few months ago and we could take Noah any time for the x-ray. I figured a new place on a Saturday morning wouldn't be crowded. There was almost no one else there at all. Nice. I was a little worried about him having to be still long enough to take an x-ray, but having seen his quiet resignation and tears at a couple of doctor visits, I wasn't too worried. He did amazingly well, I'd say not only for a kid his age, but for any age. It took two tries, and the second one seems good. (We'll find out when we have the follow up appointment on July 5th.)

Noah is definitely talking to us more, and strangers. There seems to be "phrases" he repeats and he sometimes sounds German. I was glad he talked a lot to the therapist this morning so she could hear him. She said he's doing "S" sounds which usually come much later along with sounds more from the back of the throat, and while he does make the normal up front consonant sounds, they're not as common. I'm sure this has to do with his mouth breathing issues. We're still doing allergy meds and he's getting better, but there's a congestion/cough we just can't get to go away 100%.

He had his breakfast of oatmeal and blueberries while she was here and she noticed that he only chews on the right side of his mouth. That's not really a good thing. I also mentioned he's also very right handed and she said most kids don't show a hand dominance for another year or so. So apparently there are exercises we need to do with him to get him to chew on the left side of his mouth more.

One thing that fascinates me about all of this is that if he were talking, we'd never have noticed any of this. (Of course, maybe if he was talking he wouldn't have any of these issues.) They just seem small - not something we would have noticed, much less would have thought needed attention or correction. Would they have "self corrected" if we'd never pursued speech therapy and waited it out, I don't know.

In The World, Not Of It

On FB today, I brought up that I really don't understand why, as a society, we seem to have decided that it's less harmful for kids to be exposed to violence instead of nudity/sex. This brought up some other issues, like girls and self esteem and body image issues, and the influence of the broader world on our kids.

Something Nerdstar and I have talked about a few times is this idea of raising a child to be "in the world and not of it". I know this is a Christian idea, (I am after all a Christian) but I think it applies to any conscientious parent. How do you raise a kid self-confident enough, smart enough, independent enough and so on to not be so influenced by not only stupid commercials and various propaganda at school, but also friends and family and anyone else? I can't think of anything harder - or more important.

We all know of families like the Duggars who have chosen to pretty much isolate their kids to a large extent from the broader world. And trust me, I am often tempted to try the same approach. Move to the middle of no where, home school, have little access to popular culture.

But, I also think that can be the easy way out.

Trust me, I have no idea how this all works in the long run. I don't even know that I know how to not be the one that's a bad influence on Noah. But my biggest goal in life is to raise a strong, good man. It's our responsibility to monitor what he watches, where he goes, who he hangs out with. It's our responsibility to instill our values and priorities in him. And to make sure he knows that there are other views, and the big, dreaded "evil" in the world, and how to navigate his way through it all.

Speech and Allergies

Noah had his second visit from the speech therapist yesterday. She's really nice. She's been concerned about his mouth breathing, adenoids, and ears, so we scheduled an appointment with an ENT for this morning. Other than that, she's had some practical suggestions on getting him to say words. His babbling has really increased in the last couple of weeks.

Three days ago his allergies went totally haywire. He was an absolute snot fountain. Seriously. We're trying Zyrtec, Benedryl, a little Mucinex for a cough sometimes, and even a little bit of saline rinse for his nose. These things make a dent, but don't really do enough. I think his sinuses have been congested for almost the entire last year. We got him an appointment with his pediatrician yesterday who also added a Singulair powder to the list. Unfortunately, he threw up the Singulair dose. We'll try again today and hope it stays down. Oh, and some eye drops.

It took us a long time to find the right doc to finally get his skin all cleared up. Hopefully today, we found the right ENT to clear up all this allergy stuff. It's a lot of stuff to give him for the next 30 days - the Zyrtec once a day, the Singulair once a day, a saline rinse twice a day, Nasonex once a day, eye drops once a day, and if still needed, benedryl at night. (The different meds all work different ways, and are in small doses appropriate for his size and age.) But, if we can get all this congestion cleared out, help alleviate his mouth breathing, and heal his adenoids - then we can avoid having to have his adenoids removed. Ugh. Apparently, long-term adenoid problems and mouth breathing can affect the shape of his face and his tooth growth. Weird.

We're far from this being a serious problem. I think if we do all of this aggressively for a month and get it cleared up, he can then be on just one daily allergy med.

As for talking. Like everything else he does - I'm pretty sure this is just on his time frame.

Oh, and he was so good at the doctors. He didn't like being messed with, but he just sat in my lap and had little tears down his face while they listened to his heart and chest and checked his ears and nose. I felt so bad because he was being so good and so sad. Thankfully, he recovers quickly from it.