Mutterings Of A Mindless Mommy

Yesterday my husband and I decided to try the kids out at the Playcenter at the local theater so we could see The Dark Knight.  The Playcenter is located in the theater and has licensed childcare staff.  It is geared towards kids 3-8 and has a bunch of fun activities for the kids.  The movie was a long movie and we had to be there early to get good seats so the kids were in the Playcenter for over three hours.

About an hour in to the movie I decide to take a quick potty break and check on the kids.  The staff out front said that they were doing great and then one of the gals says “They are so cute, are they twins?”  I’ve had this question asked before so I didn’t have that look of surprise on my face.  I said that my son was actually 27 months older than my daughter - the staff members were quite surprised.  The kids were doing great in the Playcenter so I went back to the movie.  Good movie by the way.

My son is almost seven and is about 46.5″ tall - that puts him between the 25th and 50th percentile on the CDC growth charts.  My daughter is 43″ tall which puts her at the 75th percentile for height.  My husband and I are both 5′7″.  I’ve seen conflicting reports but the average American male is either 5′8″, 5′9″ or 5′10″ so my husband is shorter than average.  The average American female is right around 5′4″ so I am taller than average.  My father-in-law is 6′3″ and my mother-in-law is maybe 5′2″. My dad is 5′10″ and my mom is 5′4″ (she’d say 5 feet 4.75″ if you ask her) so right about average.

According to the WebMD Child Height Predictor my son’s estimated predicted adult height is 5′9″.  Not bad…taller than daddy!  My daughter’s estimated height is 5′7″.  Of course none of this is set in stone but it is interesting to see.

I think my son’s lack of an appetite is what is really impeding his growth right now.  You can’t grow if you don’t eat, right?  My son is right about 42lbs which is in the 5th percentile on the growth chart.  I know that every child is different and considering the fact that Alexander’s weight was off the bottom of the chart, we’re happy that he’s chartable again. 

Comparing his current stats to previous stats is also fun:  when he was one month old, he was in the 25th percentile for length, 50th percentile for weight and 75th percentile for his head circumference.  I remember telling my dad “he’s short, chubby and has a big head” - it was a joke.  ;)  At one year he was in the 25th percentile for weight and 50th percentile for length - he flip-flopped his numbers.

Fast forward to his third birthday - he was a whopping 70th percentile for height and 60th percentile for weight - he was doing great!  I remember he had a good amount of chunk to his cheeks. Of course he only ate chicken nuggets, yogurt and bread but hey - it was working hehe. 

At five he was 43″ tall (50%) and 38 lbs (25%).  This is when he pretty much stopped eating.  In the last two years he’s grown 3.5″ and gained four pounds.  That is not much.  The period between age five and age six was rough on him growth-wise - he gained no weight and only grew one inch when he should have grown 2.5″ to stay on his own curve.

If he were to stay at the same percentages he was when he was five, he would be 46 lbs and 48″ tall.  He’s not off by much and we’re thankful that over the past year he’s been able to expand his list of acceptable foods and actually eats more often.  

The picture above is Alexander just before his third birthday and here is a picture of Alex just before his recital in June. 

August 1-7, 2008 has been designated as World Breastfeeding Week! There are a lot of festivities planned for the week and Attachment Parenting International (API) is hosting a giveaway on the official API blog - API Speaks.

API Speaks World Breastfeeding Week Contest

Simply comment on this post and you will be entered to win a copy of LLL’s seminal book on breastfeeding: The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding. If you’re a blogger, give this contest a mention, note that in your comment and you’ll get an extra entry in the prize drawing. Non-bloggers can get an extra entry by going to API’s home page and subscribing to our monthly eNewsletter–make sure you mention that in your comment! Winners will be announced in Friday’s WBW Wrap-up! Don’t forget to check out the other great giveaways on Bloggy Giveaways.

This evening while going through some files I came across Alexander’s science journal from 1st grade.  I don’t know why I hadn’t seen it before.  The pages were tabbed by subject with weather being at the end.  I decided to look at the weather section first and instead of finding a weather entry, I found a general journal entry.  The entry was from 5/15/2008.

Yesterday I had a Dr. apointment. I had it because I was mad during my sleep. Then we went to get a blood test to find out what was wrong. I had to go see Dr. Cook. He has to decide to go to the hospital so they can tape me to see me do it.

This brought a tear to my eye. Alexander usually draws pictures as a series of events. The first picture is obviously the needle getting ready to go in, the second is the blood and the last is the bandage that was placed on his arm.

Alexander has always articulated himself so much better in the written word than the spoken word. He always writes me notes or letters instead of talking to me. Alexander doesn’t remember the episodes where he gets mad while sleeping as they are a type of complex partial seizure which comes with amnesia of the event.

I remember the day of the blood draw rather well. Our pediatrician referred us to have the blood test to rule out thyroid issues. When Alexander heard that, he immediately hid under the bed in the exam room. I explained to Alexander that the blood test is at another facility (he has had it done before). I had to coax him out of the car and across the walkway.

He sat quietly with me and when the nurse called his name, he started to walk with me. About halfway there he said “uh uh” and turned around and bolted out the door and nearly into the road before I got to him. I carried him in and he was just screaming and screaming. I sat down and placed him on my lap and the two phlebotomists started to talk to him in such a calming voice. He was able to calm down and let us open his arm up for the butterfly needle. He got a little upset but as soon as the needle was in - he said “oh” and that was it.

I saw this on Memoirs of a Chaotic Mommy and wanted to help spread the word!

Remember your summer vacations? Doesn’t every kid deserve that kind of fun? We have over 200 children scheduled for Fresh Air trips this summer and need your help to host or find hosts!

The Fresh Air Fund has provided free summer vacations to New York City children from disadvantaged communities since 1877. This is your summer to help!

The end of July is growing closer and we still have 200 children who need to be placed with host families for this August. Unless all prospective host families are screened and vetted by the end of July these 200 children may miss out on an invaluable experience.

Please host a child or help us get the word out that we need folks who can welcome a child from the city into their homes next month. One last thing that is actually very important. We are looking for families who want to extend an invitation to a 9-12 year old. We really need more families who want older children and boys.

Please Email Angie, angie@freshair.org, immediately and she’ll speed you through the process! Or, you can call us at 1-800-367-0003 (212.897.8900) — ask for Angie. If you want to help but don’t live in these areas - BLOG about this program, tell your friends, recommend someone, or DONATE.

I couldn’t go without pink for along and have just found a fantabulous Wordpress Theme.  I hope the bright pink doesn’t bug you! 

I first heard about Twitter a few months ago from a friend of mine. It looked cool but I didn’t sign up. As time has passed, I’m reading more and more about Twitter so I caved and signed up. If you’re on Twitter, let me know and I’ll add you to the list of those I follow.

Mindless Mommy’s Twitter Page

Alexander is very rule governed. If he believes that something is a rule, he will follow it to a T. He follows through so much that earlier this year when he was coming off of Versed after a dental appointment, he managed to kick me in the head while driving without taking off his seatbelt. You see, he was mad at me for having him take the Versed and he wanted to kick me in the head. However, the rule is, you leave your seat belt on if the car is on. So even in an irrational moment like kicking his beloved mother in the head, he still followed the rule.

So today he tells me that he is going to pick up his room. He loves charts so I create a chore list with little check boxes so that he can check off everything he did. Silly me didn’t realize that I would have to list everything in the room. He gets through the chore list and proclaims that he is finished. One quick peek in his room and it only looks marginally better than it did prior to starting his adventure.

I remind him that he needs to clean his entire room. He goes into his bedroom and comes out a few minutes later with a paper that states:

A New Rule

Clean only what is on the chore list.

I take the paper from him and rip it in half with a wry smile. His eyes got huge and his mouth dropped then he started giggling. He took the paper from me and put it in the garbage then returned to his room. Now I must say that Alexander and I have this very odd sense of humor so I knew how he would react to my ripping the paper. I was not being demeaning, etc - it was playful and he knew it as such.

After a few more minutes in his room, he walks back out with a new piece of paper.

A New Rule.

Moms who rip rule papers will get their butt kicked.

I immediately started laughing and he followed suit then quickly gave me a kick on the backside. We laughed and I put the paper away for posterity. Yes, I am a weird mom and I thought this was funny. What is even more funny is the rule is, we don’t say butt. We say bottom, behind, etc. He never says butt. I never said the rule was we don’t write butt.

Gotta love my little rule follower!

My son is being evaluated for a possible seizure disorder.  He is having weird night-time episodes that his pediatrician, neuropsychologist and psychiatrist all think could be seizures.  He has always had sleep problems, he has night terrors, chronic nightmares, odd night tantrums and other interesting night movements.  Since he sleeps some nights in my room, I am able to observe these episodes so I decided to follow-up with a visit to the pediatrician.  She ordered an EEG and has referred us to a neurologist (appointment is 7/1).

Our sleep-deprived EEG was this past Monday.  We chose to have it done at the Children’s Hospital which is about 45 minutes away as opposed to the closer hospital.  I have not had the best experiences with the closest hospital so felt that the drive was worth it.  When making the appointment, she asked about his sleep habits.  She then suggested that we keep him up all night to ensure that he would fall asleep during the EEG.

Sunday morning came and Alex was excited.  Sunday afternoon came and he was still excited and just would not nap.  Sunday evening came, yup - excited with no nap.  1:00 am Monday morning came and Alex was negotiating with us to take a nap.  Eventually he was up for 30 hours and the EEG started, he did fantastic and didn’t have much of a problem with the scalp scrubbing/electrode placement.  He doesn’t particularly like his head messed with but he was so tired he didn’t care.  I don’t have the results of the EEG yet but based on what I saw, it doesn’t look like he had any suspicious activity occur.

Reading about the relationship between autism and epilepsy spawned my decision to right on the topic for this week’s Suite101 entry.  Autism and Epilepsy looks at a few scientific research studies as well as information from the Epilepsy Foundation.  I read several studies and a commonality seems to be that seizure disorders are more common among individuals with the regressive form of autism or those that are more significantly affected, cognitively.  I found this quite interesting and although I didn’t understand everything in the studies (I love having PubMed access), what I did understand was eye-opening.

Last night I was finally able to watch Ricki Lake’s birth documentary The Business of Being Born.  I signed up for a Netflix account which includes live streaming video (what a great idea!) and one of the documentaries available was The Business of Being Born.  Now I want to start off by saying that I had one very medicalized birth (induced for pre-ecclampsia, pitocin, magnesium sulfate, stadol, phenergen, etc).  I actually fell asleep while pushing my son out.  I remember the doctor calling my name and then reminding me that I need to push.  I only pushed for about 15 minutes total so I guess I was doing it right (this was my first child).

I wanted a more natural childbirth with my second but ended up with preterm labor (dilating at 26 weeks and ten weeks on bedrest) so went with an OB out of fear.  I wasn’t induced but caved and got an epidural (which only worked on the left half of my body, nice).  Despite my medicalized births, most of my momma friends deliver their babies at home - yup, home births.  Heck some of them even had unassisted homebirths - that is no midwife or other birth professional present.  Lake’s documentary has been discussed heavily among my momma friends so it was time for me to watch it.

I have to say it was a fantastic film and I really wish that something like that would have been available when I was pregnant.  My one regret with my second pregnancy is that I didn’t try harder to research my options.  I ended up delivering at 36 weeks so I’m not sure if I would have been “allowed” to deliver at home however had I had even a birth doula then I probably could have had a natural childbirth.

If you are at all interested in normal, natural childbirth I cannot recommend this movie highly enough.  It really shows viewers the sheer beauty of birth.  One scene that really touched me was shortly after a mom gave birth, her son (I’m guessing he was 18-24 months) came over and patted his new baby sibling on the head.  You just don’t get that in a hospital because the baby is whisked away to the warming table for examination. 

We wanted Alexander to be at his sister’s birth but mommy hooked up to machines and the beeping just didn’t work for my sensory defensive son.  He was able to come in and peek at his baby sister shortly after she was born but he was so overwhelmed by it all that he was pretty much disinterested.  Had she been delivered in a more natural environment, it is likely that he would have acted differently.

Earlier this week I received an email from Sarah at Wikio letting me know that Mutterings of a Mindless Mommy had jumped up to #131 among their science blogs.  This may not sound like a fantastic feat but considering the fact that Wikio has over 55,000 blogs listed in 11 different categories, I was proud!  This lil mommy blog is my pride and joy (of the Internet, of course the kids are my true pride and joy hehe) so I love to see it get recognition.

I have been quiet lately as my freelance writing “career” has taken off - I’m expecting about six times myApril revenue once all of the accounts receivables for May are calculated.  That is a lot for a part-time, work-from-home gig.  I’m happy though so I’ll take it!