The Plague descends upon our house . . .

We're all sick or getting sick: Micah's had a miserable cough for more than a week, keeping him (and us) awake at night and just making life hard, especially since he's not eating much. (He is still drinking his bottles of formula and sippy cups of water.) His cough is so harsh, I half expect to hear the wet splat of a lung hitting the wall. He and I finally went to see the doctor yesterday, and he's now on azithromycin - and we'll see how things go over the next few days. Micah is so much better than Thea at taking medicine. Thea started with a cough and runny nose Friday, I've had something lurking in my sinuses on and off for a couple weeks, we just need to get better before Christmas.

I got most of our holiday cards out this week, with a few stragglers here and there. Next year, back to shutterfly.com or kodakgallery.com. Now if I could just get motivated to do the Christmas shopping.

The Bureau of Vital Statistics re-issued Micah's New Jersey birth certificate, so the Bite-Me comment can be rescinded. Despite the screw up with the file number, it still took less time than Thea's birth certificate.

By stock in Kimberly-Clark, the only holiday decor in our house is fluffy drifts of tissues all overthe place.

Potty-less in Princeton

I'm shamelessly riffing off of one of my favorite blogs, http://www.cluelessincarolina.blogspot.com/. If you read the Crayola Factory post, you're aware that on Friday, my dear sweet Micah flushed a small plastic bottle down the powder room commode. This is the potty of first resort when you have a four-year old whose executive planning skills doesn't include making time to use the bathroom. Out of commission for the weekend, hike to the upstairs bathrooms, plan ahead.

The very nice plumber came Monday afternoon, gave the toilet the equivalent of an endoscopy with the snake, pulled the toilet, gave it the equivalent of a colonoscopy and said that there is the perfect place for something this size to wedge itself, beyond the reach of the snake. So the toilet got taken - likely to be replaced on Wednesday. The plumber's boss called and said they'd give it one more try in the shop before declaring it dead.

So right now we have a gaping hole in the powder room floor, stuffed with half a roll of paper towels to prevent sewer gas from making its presence known and morning will bring either the old almond porcelain toilet back to us, or a new white one. For the sake of expense, I hope it's the old one, but since the plumber said that it was likely a lost cause and new toilets do not come with seats, the kids and I went to Home Depot and bought a toilet seat - and a new kitchen faucet.

This was after schlepping for the third trip to UPS in Hamilton/Trenton to try and pick up my prescription pads. They must be signed for and handed to a live person, so what I usually do afte the delivery notice arrives is get on the UPS web site and have them held for pick-up. It's been a fairly routine, every six month occurance since I started working at the family practice in 2001. Wednesday the delivery came, and since we were all at the ophthalmologists' office, the notice was on the door. That night I put the hold notice in the computer. Thursday morning Micah and I go to UPS on our way down to Columbus. Hours have changed, the pick-up/drop-off place now opens at 11:30. Bite me, UPS.

So we stop off on the way home from work/day care on Thursday and the package is out for delivery, whoever is in charge of pulling it FAILED to do her job. Bite the other butt cheek, UPS.
Friday, we bailed and went to Crayola, so another day lost - for a package that allegedly will only be held at UPS until December 5th. Finally on Monday after picking up Thea at school, we went one more time and got the package. Fortunately, my supply of Rx pads is not completely used up so I was only flipping out over the number of trips there in a world where gasoline is almost $3/gallon.

Bite Me, NJ Bureau of Vital Statistics

Back in mid-October, on a Wednesday when Ela wasn't able to come for Micah's session, he and I zipped down to the Bureau of Vital Statistics to apply for his NJ birth certificate. I was thrilled that the person who had helped me with Thea's application had not yet retired, brought all my papers and then some, and we got through the whole process and went home to wait. The wait for Thea's NJ birth certficiate to arrive was around four months, and that was considered very, very fast.

So imagine my utter delight when right around Thanksgiving, Micah's NJ birth certificate arrived in our mailbox. I went to the Yahoo group for NJ parents with children adopted from China and posted my surprise and happiness. . . .

. . . .and then last week a letter arrives from BVS asking me to return those birth certificates because they had the wrong file number on them. And the office sent an envelope but didn't even have the decency to put postage on it, considering it was its error, not mine. So today, after seething quietly about this, I finally copied everything (including the envelope because the person who had written the accompanying letter wrote on it so that it would come back to her) and sent it off.

Maybe obtaining Micah's passport will be trouble-free part of this whole documentation process. . . . I doubt it - and it worries me because when I do apply for it, I have to surrender the one and only copy of his Certificate of Citizenship. It is returned with the passport, but considering even expedited processing isn't really expedited, giving that up, hoping it doesn't get lost in the processing, is more than I can handle right now. And we're not going anywhere anytime soon anyway.

Crayola Factory & National Canal Museum

What do you do when your toddler flushes a four-ounce bottle of his sister's juice down the powder room toilet, flooding the bathroom? You mop up and decamp for greener pastures. Actually we were on our way to going to Easton to the Crayola Factory when Micah found a four-pack of Thea's juice somewhere on its way upstairs and decided to see if the four bottles and his bottle of formula would sink, swim or flush. Thea pulled two out of the toilet, I found one in the foyer, and the fourth is likely lodged somewhere beyond reach. The plumber will be coming on Monday, and his fee will be deducted from a future allowance payment.

Anyway, Crayola is just a bit more than an hours' drive from Princeton, and the route goes right past the drive-thru D-n-D, so coffee was also part of the agenda. Thea warmed up to Crayola pretty quickly - there are just so many little projects to try out: we got modeling clay, made gingerbread puppets, paper-bag puppets, went to this area that projected her movements onto a screen in various colors and speeds. She tried out her Super Spy dance moves and was impressed with the results. Micah liked the area that had lots of plastic balls that you dropped into a bin, the balls rode up on a screw-like device, went on rails over to a series of plastic ramps down into the bin where they could be retrieved and the process repeated, and repeated, and repeated.

An elevator ride above Crayola is the National Canal Museum, which was very cool - very hands on: Thea could take a model of a canal boat and move it through a series of locks up and down, loading coal along the way, until the boat arrived at the other end. She took it very seriously, unlike the three boys on a school field trip who were playing Battleship with their canal boats.

They could also build their own canal using a series of plastic walls and sending bathtub boats through the chutes that they created. Thea got to steer the tiller of a mock-up of a canal boat, which made a platform move and she tried pulleys to lift a 32 pound barrel to see which pulley system made it easier to lift. I almost enjoyed all of this more than Crayola, especially since there were fewer people around.

After we made the obligatory stop at the Crayola Factory Store, we had lunch at Perkins and then drove home. Micah was asleep before we got to the bridge over the Delaware River, and Thea conked out after a few rounds of games on her Leapster.

The Eyes Have It. . . .

Today was ophthalmologist appointment day for the kids. This was on the To-Do list from Micah's ENT, but was a lower priority than the audiograms, the renal ultrasound, EIP evaluation, etc. Thea's got included in the field trip because Steve thought she was having a problem with distance vision because she couldn't (wouldn't?) read a speed limit sign while out on a walk on Thanksgiving. So on Monday, while driving home from Summit Speech School, I called South Jersey Eye Physicians - and got appointments for today. Sort of amazing. . .

And. . . .both of them check out just fine. Thea did well on all parts of the exam, except the second eye drop - the first one didn't thrill her, and she was not pleased about having the process repeated. But Dr. Wexler seems to have a particular talent for prying open small eyelids and getting the job done - and then the whole process was repeated on Micah, except he had to have two drops because of his age. Not quite the meltdown of the ER visit, but he was not pleased at being placed in his second headlock of the week. Then we got to go out to the waiting room to leave another trail of mayhem and destruction while the eye drops worked their magic.

Anyway, Micah's exam was normal and Thea has 20/20 vision and does not need glasses - and she did the "big girl" test with the letters and not the shapes, so she's quite proud of herself.

One more thing crossed off the list, leaving just bloodwork left for Micah. (The ENT also recommended genetic counseling, but I don't really see the point if all his other exams are normal and he's developmentally on track. It wouldn't change what we're doing or plan to do, so why bother just for the privilege of paying another co-pay and seeing another specialist.)

Next week on December 5th we have yet another audiogram at JFK, the second one with the BAHA, then I probably should make another appointment with the ENT to check in with him.

Monday night I went back to Summit School for the reading and book signing. Josh Swiller is even better in person than on the NPR interview. I got my copy of his book signed for Micah. I highly, highly recommend his book The Unheard.

More later.

Baby's 1st ER Visit

We've always told Thea no ER visits until after you're five years old. Somehow I missed out on conveying that important piece of information to Micah - and tonight we went to the ER for the first time and he got a few stitches in his forehead. It all started with his standing on the sofa and trying to jump or walk, and going off the edge and right into the edge of the coffee table - not the first time this has happened, but this time he conked his head just right and there was a little gash on his forehead. It looked tiny enough, but since it kept oozing, I wanted to have it checked out, especially since it was on an area on the forehead where his BAHA band sits.

Fortunately tonight was a quiet night at the University Medical Center ER (I've always hated that name, it's like the hospital is trying to capitalize on a non-existent relationship with Princeton University). No sooner than giving Micah's information to the receptionist and getting an ID bracelet slapped on his ankle were we taken into the triage area, and no sooner did the triage nurse tell us to go out and wait did the trauma tech come along and take us back.

The tech took off Micah's bandaid, told me that it was going to need stitches and went away. Phooey, I was hoping that someone would glue Humpty Dumpty back together and we could get out of there quickly, but it was not to be. And a big fat non-thank you to that trauma tech for not giving me a tissue or a gauze to catch the blood that started to seep out and run down Micah's forehhead yet again after yanking at the bandaid. Fortunately I felt ballsy enough to rummage for what I needed (I really like the vest I had on and didn't feel like getting blood on it).

The rest of the staff we dealt with (Dr. Lee, Nurse Jacqueline, Cecil) was very nice. The doctor and nurse got him numbed up, and then Cecil came in to wrap Micah in a sheet and then put him on the papoose board. Micah had a little snooze after the local anesthetic went in, so he came back full throttle with the wailing and wiggling for Act II. I held his head for the first set of stitches, then the nurse took over for round two - it's hard work to hold a little body still for more than a few minutes and Micah's determination to fight and let us know how pissed off he was did not flag for one single second until he was released from the Velcro.

All in all, with his bonking his head at 7:05, getting to the ER at 8:00, we were home by 9:15 pm which has to be some sort of record. Micah should sleep like a rock after this - but he's fooled us many other times.

Hearing Test w/the BAHA, etc.

Today was going to be a good day; I actually wasn't dreading having to spend 90 minutes in group while Micah was doing his thing at Summit School. Then we spent time in traffic, driving in what Steve said would be 'flurries' and what I would term big, fat, fluffy flakes that were coming down at an amazing rate. The landscape went from just wet in Princeton to something out of a Currier & Ives print up in New Providence. First snow of the season so it completely stymied most of the drivers on I-287 and I-78, making the trek up to Union County that much more pleasant. I chugged most of my coffee en route, which was a bit of a mistake and miscalculation on my part: when the roads are iffy and one is not familier with the choke points, don't opt for the extra large cup at Dunkin Donuts.

Micah is teething, still - more teeth than I care to think about. If I were him, I'd be chugging a Percocet smoothie or two, but he's having to get by on infant Motrin or Tylenol. There are at least five or six bottom teeth emerging, and yesterday when I got a finger in to rub his gums while trying to get a visual, I swear there is an upper molar or two also coming in. He's a little whinier, a little clingier, but still being a trooper through it all.

His trooperishness flagged when I handed him over to the therapist before trotting out to the mommies group. He was ticked, and one starts crying, the whole group usually chimes in. Which makes me feel like crap just walking out of the room.

Then while cleaning my mental sock drawer in group, I realized that instead of accomplishing all the wonderful things I put on the list for today, I would be driving from New Providence to Edison because Micah had another round of audiological testing at JFK Medical Center. And my folder of all information pertinent to Micah, Summit School, JFK, etc. - including directions - was at home.

There were only two other children there this morning, Cormac (bilateral cochlear implants) and Connor (hearing aids) - and the discussion this morning was centered on plans for Thanksgiving and that most families all have their quirky, dysfunctional aspects. Personally, I'd have rather been painting the fingerprint turkey and coloring the acorn (a study in brown Crayola) with Micah. They also brought snow in to the classroom in buckets so the children got to scoop it and mush it.

Micah slept on the way to Edison, which I got to via I-78 and the Garden State, rather than the windy back roads way that http://www.randmcnally.com/ spewed out. He did pretty well on his testing - with a little adjustment of the volume on his BAHA, which was sent between 1 and 2 to closer to the 2, his hearing came in at the 30 dB range. And we have to go back in two weeks for a retest to duplicate the results to make sure they are accurate. Then if all goes well, the next follow-up at JFK will be in three to four months.

Next week, I'm bagging Parent-Infant Group because there is going to be book reading that evening at Summit School by two hearing impaired authors : Josh Swiller, whose book The Unheard I just read about three weeks ago, and Michael Chorost who wrote Rebuilt about his experience getting cochlear implants as an adult. I heard Josh Swiller's interview on NPR, thanks to Janet, bought the book and read it in about two days (a minor miracle given that most of my reading is accomplished while blow-drying my hair or in the middle of the night if I wake up and can't get back to sleep). The Unheard is one of the best books I've read this year so I want Micah to have this as a part of his future library, once he's done with Dr. Seuss and Curious George.

Yesterday Thea and I went out to lunch, Tiger Noodles, again and then did our grocery shopping and shopping shopping. The project for the past few days has been get ready to do holiday cards. I bought photo cards at the bargain price of eight for $1 at Target, labels and stationery, so now we just needed a picture to put in the cards. Thea was lured into putting on a dress, tights and patent leather shoes; Micah got thrown into a little button down shirt, vest and corduroy pants. I'm glad we didn't take them to The Picture People or whatever, getting one shot of both of them looking decent (smiling would be bonus), Thea not yanking her dress up showing off her pink underwear with the hearts and glow in the dark skulls, and Micah not stuffing two fingers into his mouth while putting a headlock on his rhinoceros would have taken intervention from a higher power.

Then Thea decided that she wanted to put the address labels that we had purchased that afternoon on the envelopes (all 144 of them) so that meant going to the manufacturer's web page and finding the template and printing them. Something I had planned to do in the peace and solitude that comes after both are asleep, but was not to be. She did not tire of this task, but thought she was the most fabulous az-IST-ent (her pronounciation) in the world, standing at my elbow, handing me labels, wearing only the aforementioned pink underwear with red hearts and glow in the dark skulls for that warm, fuzzy love, death and fluorescence look (purchased from Gymboree, not some baby biker shop.)

All I wanted to do was get the cards ready for the eight or nine relatives who live overseas so I could finally, for the first year ever, get them on their way well in advance of Christmas. So Thea's determination to do the whole lot turned a fifteen minute task into a two hour long project. Then she wanted to sign all the cards - which was negotiated down to the nine overseas cards, which she diligently attacked with her blue magic marker, printing a giant T H E A on most of them.