AP Moment of the day ~ life is a very fragile thing..

..or, what not to do when your son starts to choke as you sit at the dinner table.

Sheesh... what an evening. Little boys ( and girls ) with Downs syndrome have a tendency to not chew their food very well. Tonight at the table Mister Jack suddenly sat bolt upright and grabbed for a glass of water. He frantically started trying to drink whilst gasping and gagging. I jumped up as did hubby, and we both rushed to his aid. Jackster was very scared and so was I. My first instinct was to turn him upside down and pat on his back, but a) he's HUGE and heavy and b) he didn't WANT me to turn him upside down.... He was scared and gagging. I tried to reach into his mouth to pull out the food meanwhile hubby was trying to put him over his knee to pound on his back... Jessie had run off into the living room crying and I kept saying "I'm scared!!! I'm SCARED!!!" Poor little Jack...!! I managed to get my finger into his throat being careful to not push the food any further down his throat and my finger and his gag reflex got the food out.

* breathe.... breathe *

...Oh boy. I don't wish that kind of panic on anybody. I don't usually panic so badly, but this was my boy and I could tell how frightened he was. When it was all over he looked with concern at his plate of remaining food and we decided perhaps a banana would be a wiser option. We asked him if he was OK and he said he "thought he was killed"!! ( Bless him!!) He explained as best he could, that he had put some food in his mouth and instead of going in his tummy it stuck in his throat. He then started to cry some more and said " And Mummy is MAD...! " awww...poor little guy. I reassured him that far from being mad, I was very scared and now I am very happy that he is OK...... He decided that perhaps he would eat his banana whilst sitting on my lap :)

For the rest of the evening Jack was hyper! He was talking and singing, jumping around and laughing, full of the joys of living. As well he should be.

Soup. Soup every day for the rest of our lives. From now on!!!

AP Moment of the day ~ The tinkle of a child's laughter...

Or, how to make your daughter laugh until she pees!! ;D

Lately we've been having some rather unfortunate Pee related incidents. (P.R.I.'s)! We were out walking the dog ( something I try and do as often as possible but not VERY often in winter!! It's COLD out there!!) and we were laughing about something or other, I can't even remember what it was we were laughing at... and Jessie suddenly said "Stop making me laugh or I'll pee your pants..." !!

"....???!!... You'll pee MY pants!!!??! " I said "Ahm gonna laugh SOOOOO hard ah'll pee YER Pants!!!" I teased.

Ooops....!! Little giggling girls go from happy to irritated really quick if you make them pee their pants! Even if they WERE laughing at the time! :D

Today we had a similar occurrence! We were watching these dizzy rats of ours. We threw in a bunch of broccoli leaves and they went BONKERS for it. Rosebud, usually the meeker rat, kept dragging huge branches of leaves and stashing them away in her house. She would stash, scurry back, pick up another branch and haul it up the little walkway and hide it and then back down for some more. The other two gals were oblivious and simply chewing away at the one little piece they had in their mitts. Rosebud had a huge stash and Jessie and I were doing voices for all the rats.. "Hey!!! Get out of my way!! I have FOOD !! It's Mine mine MINE!!!" etc. This was all well and good until we decided to put the entire stalk from the broccoli in there. Rosebud shot out of her house, dashed to the stalk and opened her tiny mouth as wide as she could get it. The stalk was about twice as big as her, but she managed to get her teeth into it and, straddling it like a horse, she hauled, dragged and shimmied it up to her little nest, an old, square, tissue box. Well you can imagine what happened next.... naturally the huge stalk wouldn't get into the box. She tugged, she pulled, she struggled..... and we laughed and laughed and laughed!!!!!!

Poor Jessie. All this laughter necessitated a mad dash to the bathroom and a quick change....!! LOL!!!

Somehow it didn't seem all that important!! If my girl is peeing her pants from laughing too hard with me.... well... it almost doesn't get much better than that!!!! These bloomin' rats have already proven to be invaluable. We spend hours bonding with them, and correspondingly, bonding together. ... Now we just need to work on getting to the bathroom a liiiiittle faster! :D

AP Moment of the day ~ I do believe, I do believe...

...

I took Jessie for a check up at the dentist today... She'd been to see a pediatric orthodontist recently and they had mentioned something about a tooth needing to be "wiggled out".... hmmm... sounds interesting. Just how do they DO this "Wiggling" ?? Erm, Yah. It's an extraction. It just sounds prettier that way... "wiggling"... anyhoo... she was supposed to be going to her regular pediatric dentist and they were going to see what needed to be done etc. No biggie. Jessie went back all by herself... it's an awesome office.. toys, TV's, child sized furniture.. all very open and airy, all light maple wood... and the staff are young and pretty... it's like a movie!!! So she went back all by herself, Happy As Larry. ( who IS Larry?!) Presently one of the techs came out to the waiting room where I was wrestling Jack to keep him in front of the fish tank and out of the dentists rooms... and she asked

"Did you want to go ahead with the extraction today?! "

Oh. Today. Hmmm.

I told her I doubted we'd swing that past Jessie given that she'd had no warning about it what so ever and she probably would not be very happy at the prospect. I told the woman I didn't care one way or the other if Jessie has straight teeth or not. They are her teeth, it's her mouth, and basically the choice could be hers. She's a smart girl. If they tell her why they think they want to take a tooth out and she thinks it's a good enough reason, she'll allow it, if not, she won't! I love giving her the power to make decisions regarding her self. So. That was my take on it. If they talk to her and she agrees to do it, then we'll do it. If not, she may wish to wait a while or to not do it at all. Fine by me too. Off the woman totters.

....

Time passes.

....

Jack grows weary of being a "good boy" and I offer him the option of waiting in the van if he can't wait nicely in the waiting room. Naturally I had nothing to offer the boy by way of amusements, unlike last time when I had a Leap Pad plus books, a Magna~ Doodle, 15 library books and an assortment of cars. This time... Nada. Blast. We look at the fish, we count the fish, we play with the beads on the wire... "What color is THIS bead?!? " etc....

.....


** sigh **

......

Finally Jessie arrives! She's wearing a new T Shirt with the PD Dentist's name all over it and, oddly, a picture of a hippo with an unfortunate overbite, her cheeks look rather pink and swollen and she's got a mouthful of gauze. Poor kid! I give her a big hug and tell her how brave she was and the tech informs me that they have already given her a dose of Motrin as "you have a long drive to get home" (erm? 20 minutes??) and they informed me that I'd need to keep dosing her up with medicine for the night and into the next day. Huh.

I told Beans I'd take her to the Mecca that is Super Target and buy her anything she wanted to make up for the fact that the surgery was pretty much sprung upon her and after the bleeding stopped and she took out the gauze I asked her how it all went down. I told her I was proud of her for making the decision to have her tooth pulled. She began to shake her head.

"What do you mean? " I asked. "Didn't they ask you if you wanted to have it done?!"

"NO!!" She coughed. "They just did it. "

Bah. Now I'm steamed. I understand, I'm sure most kids would have said no if you asked them did they want a tooth pulled. But I do think it's wrong to just force your authority on a child in that way. Poor kid.

Anyway, the crux of it is Jessie is totally untraumatised by the whole thing. She couldn't choose a toy in Super Target so she said we'd just check online. Knowing her she'll forget all about it. We did pick up some chocolate puddings, chicken noodle soup and some yogurts and she enjoyed the heck out of all three!!!

The biggest thrill for her is she gets another visit from the Tooth Fairy! She's written a long letter to her and asked her how her Christmas was! She explained that this tooth was short notice as it hadn't been loose and asked her if she was watching her!!! ** grin** !!! I love my kid. I love that she loves the tooth fairy and though she looks at me some times and says "Is it YOU!?!?" she wants the fairy to be real and I am not going to take that away from her.

Tonight the fairy will sprinkle her magic dust, leave a dollar coin or two and maybe will write a little note in tiny fairy writing telling her how brave she is and how much we hope people will someday give her a little more respect.

Ap Moment of the day~ By Jove, I think she's got it!

Another good day!! :D Woot!! ;D I know, 2 decent days in a row and suddenly all is right with the world!! :D Parents, Please Don't Sit On Your Kids is a really surprising little gold mine for me... either that or I'm just in the right frame of mind to receive the information... but for instance it tells parents to be clear in the way you communicate to your children and to explain the reasons WHY something has to be a certain way. Today I tried this with Jackster. ( and it has JUST occurred to me that I don't do this with Jessie anymore... I expect her to just DO what I ask without question as she is older and should just KNOW why I want this or that .... hhhmmm... enlightening as I type! :D ) anyway....!! .... Jack had thrown a banana peel on the floor and had left it there. I asked him to put it in the trash and he said "No. You do it" !!! I explained to him that if he had produced trash he needed to put it in the trash can otherwise, if everyone left their trash on the floor the house would fill up and would be dirty and horrible and not a nice place to live...... He looked a me for a moment, then said "OK".... walked over to the peel, carried it to the trash and then put it away !!!!!! I was stupefied!! :D Soooooo simple!!! Lest you think that might be a one off, let me show you another example!! Tonight the children were allowed an ice cream cone for dessert ( Organic!! It was Organic!!!) and whilst they ate at the table I made a small bowl for myself and sat and chatted on the couch with hubby as I ate it. Presently the children came into the living room and made it clear they wanted to eat their cones with us. Ordinarily that wouldn't really be a big problem, but hubby and I were enjoying a rare moment of face time and preferred they stay at the table. I told Jessie to go to the dining table until she was done and she went right away. Jackster was NOT going to leave and he was ADAMANT about it!!! ........


( sorry... got distracted. Always think of Adam Ant when I see Adamant but now I can't remember a single song he sang!!! tsk. ) .... anyhooo..... OH! Did I mention that I thought Jessie might have ADHD...!! LOL!! I've just realised how ironic that statement is !!!! LOL!!!


SOOOOOO!!!..... where was I !!!?!? Oh yes, Jackster was determined (!!) he was not going to leave the living room, so I said to him "Honey, we would like you to eat your ice cream at the table so that if it drips we can easily wipe it up. If it drips on the carpet the carpet will get all sticky and then it will be really hard to clean......." and he said.... and I'm not kidding... "OK"... and he went to the dining table to finish his ice cream!! :D You should have seen hubby's face!!!! LOL!!! It's amazing!!! :D

So life has been a little more pleasant around here lately ... I think Jessie has a problem focusing on one thing at a time, but given my tendency to "digress" ( again, I've only just put these two things together, right here, right now!!!) ... I think she may get it from me! :D

**Oh!! Look!! A Butterfly!!!!!!!**...................

......

Jack has been driving me bats with peeing all the time. Gah. The boy is toilet trained but suddenly he has wet himself 5 times today. FIVE TIMES. *tsk, and indeed, sheesh*

I feel it is probably linked to the inordinate quantity of Satsuma oranges the boy ate yesterday AND the half gallon of Orange Juice he drank this morning. Ahem. Yeah. I know. Call me slow...!! :D

I'm cold turkeying the blighter and we'll hope that tomorrow is a drier one! :D

But hey!! Nothing can cloud this mood tonight!!! :D Whooo HOOOO!! What a GREAT DAY! :D

AP Moment of the Day.. Don't sit on the kids! :D

I'm reading a new parenting book at the moment called "Parents, please don't sit on the kids" ( or something very close to that~) and it has been very helpful so far. It's the same advice as usual, don't yell at your kids, don't hit them, treat them with respect and kindness and offer them choices etc etc ... ( yadda yaddda yadda!!! ;D ) but it's good to hear again and it actually does work! :D I think I read this sort of stuff in the past when Jessie ( who has always been a really "good" child ) was being a good child and again when Jack was still but a baby and not quite the "BOY" he has become!! :D We always thought that perhaps it was because he was Down's that made him more difficult.... ahem.... with much apologies to my good friends .... it's because he's a boy. I can't believe it, but it's true. He's. All. Boy. Through and through!! :D Anyway, this book has been very helpful and on top of my successful day out yesterday the book, the kid and I have had a happy day today. When he started acting up and out and throwing toys and books about ( a little rhyme there!!) I was able to keep my cool and tell him why I didn't want him to act that way, I used "I" messages, and I would give him options, one of which usually involved him moving in a Northerly direction!! ' D the tactic worked and I was STUNNED to find that simply explaining why I didn't want him to throw his enormous bear around near the water glasses or the plants was enough to make him say "OK..." and STOP DOING IT!!! I didn't even raise my voice, let alone yell!! ;D Also using "I" messages and saying things like " I am getting agitated by your running around. Please come to the bathroom and put your pants back on right away..." was enough to garner cooperation!! No kidding!! :D I should try it with hubby!! Not the part about the pants of course...! :D

So anyway, it's a good book, today was a good day! :D Maybe I CAN do this after all!!? :D

AP Moment of the day ~ Filling my cup!

Who knew that a mere two or three hours of alone time can make me a happy Mama?!? I have been so seriously depleted lately and have not been very pleasant to be around at all. My moods have been dreadful and my temper has been on a hair trigger for the last few weeks ( if not longer if I dare to be honest...) Things have been heating up and a blow up was inevitable. It was decided that I should take some time to go out alone. I needed to return a couple of items I'd picked out (but not tried on) at Christmas time. This involved me going to a really lovely store with lots of pretty and inexpensive clothes, purses, shoes and knick knacks! I really love it and the people are so helpful. I spent an hour or two in there, trying on various outfits and plotting ways to get the most out of my store credit! :D From there I went to Super Target, another of my favorite places! I picked up one or two things there also and whilst there noticed how many mothers and daughters there were shopping together. Mothers with little girls the same age as mine! It warmed my heart to see them together and to watch them interact with each other!! They were all so sweet!! It was like a little cosmic sign, a sign that things will be alright. I ALWAYS miss the kids no sooner have I pulled out the driveway without them, but, as they saying goes, How Can I Miss You If You Won't Go Away!?!? :D that's the conundrum of homeschooling. It's wonderful for your family, you bond so tightly together... but then Mama goes slowly insane as she never, ever, gets 5 minutes alone!!

Today refreshed me. My cup is once again filled and I can go probably about a month before I need to get out alone again. Best to go out once a week though, you know, just to be on the safe side!?!?! :D