More Alike Than Different

Saw this on Raising Joey, and I had to share it too! The National Down Syndrome Congress has started a More Alike Than Different campaign, and the following are some of the spots they've videoed.

Week in Review

It's been a busy, busy week.

Kipp had Monday off, and it just so happened to be the Monday of the local parents' group meeting. They had a couple of guest speakers we were really interested in; a married couple in their 30s. Both of them just happen to have Ds.

It was both enlightening and sobering in some respects. Like I said, they are in their 30s, so they grew up in a much different world than our kids are growing up in now. They didn't have early intervention. They weren't mainstreamed in school. When they got married, their group of peers, a small group of adults who have Ds that they grew up with, stopped socializing with them. The reason, the young man's mother (who was up there as a guest speaker also) explained that the parents of the others wanted to avoid trouble; it's heartbreaking to have to tell your child they can't do something, and if any of them had been influenced by their example and wanted also to get married, it would have brought so much trouble to them.

The couple was so charming. The man was very well-spoken, and the woman very shy. They were both funny, and had amazing comedic timing. They both work; she is a bagger at a grocery store, and he works in the bakery at Wal-Mart. He was asked how much he makes (since he's not drawing SSI), and he informed us $10.45 an hour. The room was really impressed by this, and he grinned at us, and rubbed his fingers together in the universal sign for "mucho money."

They held hands often during the meeting. She often laid her head on his shoulder. He did almost all of the talking; she is hearing-impaired and her hearing aid is broken.

They live with his mom, who maintains guardianship over him (so they aren't legally married.) She agreed to let them marry, as long as they agreed to have the woman's tubes tied. They both love children, and were hoping to have children of their own, but the man's mother stood her ground. "There's a difference between loving kids," she said, "and being able to take care of them 24/7." The couple does have several dogs; the young woman said her dog was her baby. When asked if she was okay with not being able to have kids, she hesitated then said firmly, "No. I wanted a baby." But she sighed with resignation, and laid her head on her husband's shoulder.

They don't have drivers licenses, but the man does know how to drive. Again, his mother insisted he not get a license; she thinks he'd pass the test with no problem, but she's concerned about his reaction time, and more concerned about the rest of the drivers out there. You could see the pain in her face when she discussed her decisions about the driving and the grandbabies; they were hard decisions for her, and it hurt to have to make them.

The wife owns a 2-bedroom log cabin on her family's property out of town. The couple spends every weekend at this home alone. They do have an agency that checks on them, to make sure they have food, that the food isn't spoiled, and whatnot, but the rest they do themselves. There are lists in every room to remind them of the things they need to do to keep the house neat and clean.

That was Monday night; Kipp and I talked all the way home about future possibilities. Well, I babbled and he listened. You know how it goes.

Tuesday, I took Kiki to her pedi. Her diaper rash was just not clearing up, and it had developped blisters over the weekend. He said it looked like it had gotten bacterial, so she's back on an antibiotic. This one? Every 6 hours. Geez! We're lucky Kiki takes medicine so well.

We talked about testing her for celiac disease. I told him I'd already put her on a gluten-free diet and had seen improvements in several areas (not to mention her hair is growing back.... did I mention that?) He said since the blood test looks for antibodies, being on a gluten-free diet would most likely give a false negative if she does have it.

But this is why I like him (it doesn't hurt that he's flirting with Kiki the whole time.) He added, "Let me ask you this. Let's say we do the blood test and it comes back negative. Are you going to change her diet?"

Well. No.

"Exactly," he said. "If she's improving because of the gluten-free diet, why would you change it? And if she does have celiac disease, the only thing you CAN do is put her on a gluten-free diet. Now if in the future you need a diagnosis for some reason, like when she gets into school and you have problems getting them to give her gluten-free food, I will be more than happy to talk with them, give them a note, whatever it takes to ensure that she stays on the gluten-free diet."

Love him.

Next up, Kipp wanted her tested for diabetes. She's been peeing CONSTANTLY, and is always signing for drink. Kipp has diabetes, and excessive peeing always makes his radar go PING! PING! PING!

"Well," he said, "If we're going to test for diabetes anyway, let's go ahead and test for celiac at the same time. Might as well test her thyroid while we're at it."

Yep, love him. Not even any argument, just "Okay, let's go!"

The blood drawing was dramatic. They had to take it out of her arm, and didn't get enough out of the first arm, so we had to go to the other one for the rest. She was NOT happy. She cried and yelled afterwards, and I held her and comforted her, and just before we left, she stopped, smiled at the blood people and waved bye-bye.

Then snuffled all the way to the car. Poor darling.

Wednesday, we had our WIC meeting. She spent the whole time signing for a ball. I don't know why she thought the WIC lady had a ball, but she was insistent about it.
And then she had her ST, but her focus was way off.

Today, she had her OT, and her focus again was kind of off. For the first time ever, she actually turned her back on us and pretended we weren't there.

Now I love her OT. She's a fabulous woman, and she's been getting great results with Kiki. She tends to get boisterous when she's excited, however, and she often rubs Kiki's torso or roughhouses her when she's playing. Kipp and I don't really roughhouse with Kiki the same way; you can tell by the look on her face and her body language that she doesn't like it.

So I intervened finally and told her OT all of this. She apologized and explained that with most of her clients, exuberant and rougher feedback is often necessary due to their sensory issues. I said there was no apology necessary; she hadn't done anything harmful or anything. It's just Kiki is a different kind of kid; she responds quickly to praise, and she gets overwhelmed easily when there is loud noise or is surrounded by too much activity and motion.

Later in the afternoon we went shopping. My gluten-free pantry is getting bare. I remembered that the large grocery store in town here has a health food section, and I decided to check what they have. You know, because it's only 3 miles away, and the health food store I went to last week is like 15 miles away. Score! So much gluten-free stuff!! Yay!

And you know, now I don't have to drive all the way to another town and drive through busy big town streets just for health food. Hee! I say "busy streets" and make the woman in me who grew up in the Bay Area, CA, laugh like a school girl.

I'm spoiled, people. I'd rather drive through the woods to get to the grocery store than have to take highways and city streets. So there you go.

And that's all I have. Isn't that enough? Isn't that a lot?

Hair Obsession

Okay. Last post on hair for a while. Promise. I know I'm being vain, and there are so many worse things, and I need to suck it up. BUT, just as an update, there's some fuzzy white-blond hair poking through one of the bald spots on the back of her head too. Yay!

But I had to share this because it tickled me. I told Bri this weekend about Kiki's hair loss, and that it could be permanent. "No!" she responded, "She can't lose her hair! How is she going to get a boyfriend??"

Bri is 12. Boys are important right now.

I reassured her that it wasn't certain to be permanent, and if it was, Kiki could wear a wig. This appalled her even more.

"She CAN'T wear a wig," Bri informed me. "How is she going to take a shower in middle school wearing a wig? Also, girls in school pull hair HARD. They'll pull her wig right off!"

These were things I hadn't even considered. Not knowing how else to respond, I just lamely repeated that it wasn't certain the hair loss would be permanent.

She thought for about a minute, and then smiled. "Well," she said, "we can always put her on Match.Com."

You know, we all obsess about the important stuff. It runs in the family, obviously.

Gluten Free

So I went to a local health food store on Friday (I think there are maybe 2 in the area.) It was just like walking into a corner of California. Oh, it made me miss Trader Joe's. I think there's one in KC. We need to make a road trip!

Of course, health food is at least twice as expensive as regular crap, but it's for a good cause so I'm not complaining.

Kiki's been gluten-free since New Year's Eve now. As far as immediate effects, last night when I was giving her a bath, I noted her skin is now smooth! It had been so bumpy on her arms and legs for a while now. The doc had said it was eczema, and I'd been putting cream on her like crazy with no effect. Less than a week of gluten-free, and her skin is smooth. Woot!

As far as her hair goes, she's got two more small bald spots on the top of her head that she's just developed in the last few days. But, right in the front where she'd started to recede first, there's a fine, white-blonde fuzzy patch of hair growing in. Yay! I don't know that this is a result of the new diet; I know that with alopecia, the hair starts growing back in as spontaneously as it started falling out. In any case, hopefully we're turning a corner.

I've started counting her calories because she eats like a little horse. I've been telling the docs for almost a year now that I've been concerned about her slow weight gain and the fact that her growth has slowed so awfully much. They keep assuring me that it's just because she's so active. Which is true, but I wonder sometimes if they also think she's a picky eater. And she isn't! She eats lots. I've pegged her at about 900-1200 calories a day, which is just about right for a toddler (that I can glean from the 'Net, anyway.)

Hopefully, this diet will fix all that too.

Taking the Bull by the Horns

My Grandma was the type of person who paid close attention to what doctors told her. She acted very dutiful and docile to them. And then she would go home and exhaustively research every prescription they gave her and every diagnosis they gave her, and then she would decide for herself which way she was going to treat it.

She was very big into holistic healing, believing that doctors tended to be too focussed on their pharmaceuticals and the symptoms rather than the big pictures. She made her own herbal remedies. She believed in vitamin and mineral supplements. She believed that diet affected us, environment affected us, mental states affected us.

She spent a lot of time pushing articles on Mom and me throughout her life, articles out of several health food and New Agey health type magazines, as well as more mainstream mags like Reader's Digest and whatnot. She didn't nag so much; she'd just cut out the articles, hand them to us, and then leave it up to us from there to read it and do something about it.

Mom told me that after Grandma died and she was going through Grandma's things, she found a whole pile of clippings, and magazines with pages marked, and notes to Mom about how she needed to read these things. So Mom read them, really read them, and she was amazed that Grandma had noted that Mom was stressed, overworked, overtired, possibly depressed, and that all of these articles were tips about how to address those issues, how to make her healthier.

My point here is, I guess, that having lived with my Grandma most of my life, I have this habit of researching. I don't just take doctors at their word. I have to know more. I have to know everything. And luckily I have the Internet, where Grandma used to have only the library and her magazine subscriptions, so it's so much easier for me.

Also having been raised by my Grandma's health consciousness, there's a very ingrained part of me that believes every health condition is an effect; there is a cause, you just have to find it. So it doesn't sit well with me when a doctor tells me, "No one knows why it happens. It just does sometimes." Just because there's no emphatically proven cause doesn't mean there isn't one; it just means it's not important enough or lucrative enough to research.

So I felt guilty about Kiki's alopecia. I cried all day. I felt like I had done something wrong to cause it, or that I hadn't done enough to stop it. I felt sorry for both of us.

And then Grandma's genes kicked in, and I went Internet surfing, and I found a link between alopecia arreata and celiac disease. And then I found a link between celiac disease and Ds. And then I read the symptoms for celiac disease, and this little bell went "Ping!" inside my head.

Now maybe I'm grasping desperately at straws. Maybe. All I know is that now that I'm taking some kind of action, I feel empowered. I feel like if I can put up some kind of battle, then even if she does lose her hair, I will know I did everything I could.

So as of dinner last night, she's on a gluten-free diet. It turns out there are a couple of health food stores in town, and one of them has a huge selection of gluten-free products. I will be checking them out tomorrow.

Being gluten-free is certainly not going to hurt her, and there's such a huge chance that it could actually improve her health, decrease her chances of developing autoimmune thyroid disease, and maybe even get her hair to grow back -- you know, we have to try it.

I feel so positively charged up right now, I don't even know how to express it. Thanks, Grandma. I love you and miss you so much.

Alpoecia Confirmed

So we went to the dermatologist today. He did not flirt with my girl. He just pulled on her hair. And then he said the following.

It is an autoimmune reaction. It usually happens in adults and young adults, and can usually be treated with things like Rogaine. But we cannot treat Kiki, because they can't use those same meds with a child younger than 2.

Now most often when people have alopecia, it will spontaneously start growing back all by itself. Except when they show the same balding patterns as Kiki, which is to say balding along the bottom, and huge patches on the back of her head.

Because she has this particular kind of alopecia, it puts her in an even higher risk category of developing autoimmune thyroid disease.

We will bring her back in 4 months, when she is 2, and it's possible we may be able to treat with Rogaine. It's more possible that she will lose more hair, and all of the hair loss will be permanent.

Oh wait. No, that would have been the GENTLE way to put it. This is actually how he phrased it.

"Come back in four months. If her hair shows signs of regrowth, we'll try topical Rogaine treatments. I suspect however that there won't be signs of regrowth, and that she'll have lost more of her hair. And in that case, I will recommend that you shave her head and go for the Sinead O'Connor look or buy her some wigs."

Nice.

Christmas Update

I'm still catching up!

Every year, we spend Christmas Eve at Mamaw and Papaw's. It's been a family tradition since before I moved out here. Evidently everyone used to spend the night there on Christmas Eve so they'd be there Christmas morning. But things change. So like I said, since I've been here, it's Christmas Eve at Mamaw and Papaw's; and then B & C spend Christmas Day with their mom.

So we picked them up on Christmas Eve and had them open up their gifts from us before heading over. Christmas Eve started late this year because Chip had to work. While we were waiting for time to pass, Kipp broke out the rainbow sherbet. As always, Kiki immediately hung out by him to get some. And then the older kids soon followed suit.


We finally headed over and for the first time EVER we were the FIRST to arrive!!! Go us!!

As we settled in, Mamaw surprised us with a Christmas dress for Kiki! Kipp and I immediately began to quibble over whether or not to put it on her -- I wanted to, but Kiki is so difficult to get dressed these days AND she gets pissed off to boot. So I was about to give in, grudgingly, when Kiki promptly puked up rainbow sherbet all over herself and me.

I did not have a brand-new Christmas dress handy for myself, but nobody cares about how I look. :)

It comes with a little hat, and for Christmas Eve, she kept it on all night without seeming to care. I of course forgot my camera, so I put her in it today to get pics. She did not like the hat today.


Mamaw and Papaw always get such awesome things for the kids. They didn't know what kinds of toys to get Kiki, so they stuck with clothes and shoes, which means y'all are going to be getting pics of new outfits every day for a week. At least. If I don't get lazy. Boots! She got boots!! They are adorable.

Today, Santa Papaw came to visit, which is why she was in her Christmas dress two days after Christmas. So yay! We're on track with pics with Santa 2 years in a row!! (And the nice thing about Papaw being Santa is that we get as many pics as we want. Be warned.)

Let's see... I want...


The always necessary crying on Santa's lap photo.


You ARE real!!!!


And giving Santa a kiss.


And I have to end it with this one 'cause it glows with attitude and Christmas spirit.

Yay! Pics!

So after I threw my online tantrum last night, I sulked until Kipp was ready to go to bed, at which point he of course noticed I was upset. So after I explained I couldn't find my USB cable, he immediately started to search for it and found it... in my pile of stuff right by my side of the couch. Yeesh.

I'm such a big baby.

Anyway. PICS! Yay! Pics!!

This is Kiki before she got her haircut. Notice the real ponytail! I was so proud, but now that I look at the pics, I see where the bald spots are (you can see 'em peeking through the hair), and so I think this has been going on longer than I thought. I can't believe it took me so long to notice.

And this is Kiki getting her first haircut. It was such a cool place but soooo expensive. Still, it was worth it just for the experience. She was so good, which is awesome because I was worried she'd be all squirmy.

And this is Kiki with Grandpa JP. They just absolutely adored each other.

And Kiki with Grandma.

And Kiki with her mom, who obviously needs a visit from What Not to Wear and the Hair Dye Fairy.

And Kiki with Daddy, showing how she signs "I love you." She's got to be unique.

And this is how she waits for us to get her when she wakes up.

And this is how we found her sleeping last week. Yes, she's asleep. And yes, her feet are touching the ground.

Well, that's plenty for an update for today. :) More this weekend!!!

No pics

Right. So I was all avoiding the camera while Kiki was balding because I am VAIN. And then I lost a camera, the only camera that had a USB cable I could find because cameras appear to have weird proprietary USB connections that nothing else on earth have, and even if you have two cameras of the EXACT same brand, except 2 years difference in age, they will have different cable requirements as well.

But I still had A camera, so I used it when I came to my senses, the day before Mom and JP left and I realized, "Oh, hey, I didn't get any pics of Kiki with one of her sets of grandparents."

And then I forgot said camera when we went to another set of grandparents' house on Christmas Eve. Because I am stupid.

And then I found the LOST camera, which was NOT lost but actually expertly hidden from children (and, obviously, my own self), and it turns out that the one I had NOT lost was actually the one that had a cable I could find, only guess what? I can't find the cable now!

And I haven't been able to find my card reader for, oh, I don't know, 500 years or something.

So. I have pictures. But because I am a great big huge lameass, I cannot share them. At all. With anyone. Who isn't sitting next to me.

Which is, you know, all my family and closest friends. You know, the people who are the most important in MY life, most of whom have never met my daughter face to face, and rely on ME to keep them updated as to what she's doing, how she's feeling, the funny thing she did this morning, and, oh yeah, WHAT THE FUCK SHE LOOKS LIKE THIS MONTH.

So I am having an utter meltdown, obviously, without having a visible meltdown, so right now as I bitch online, my husband is sitting across the living room, singing to a capella music only he can hear while he plays electronic solitaire and I AM LOSING MY MIND.

Why am I always losing my shit? Why don't I ever lose someone ELSE's shit for once? Why is it always my stuff that ends up completely MIA? It's not like I strew my things all over the house. I have exactly ONE FUCKING PILE next to my side of the couch in the living room and then ONE FUCKING PILE on my desk upstairs. That's it. That's the full extent of where I put my FUCKING ELECTRONIC CRAP.

And yet somehow it disappears. Usually when things get CLEANED UP.

Well, whatever.

Other than the past hour, we have had a fabulous Christmas.

I hope all of you had a fabulous Christmas too. Please forgive my moment of madness.

What she's doing now...

1. Her first word is definitely "Up." I've been reinforcing it now for 2 weeks, saying "Up" every time I pick her up, and Kipp's been doing it too. I didn't know the sign for Up, so we just used the word... and sure enough, she started using the word every time she wanted to be picked up. It makes me wonder if continuing to teach her signs is a good idea?

2. She's now walking anything that moves around the living room: her toybox (which is just a big plastic container), her car, whatever. She can stand without bracing herself on anything for a good 10 seconds without wobbling too.

3. She's learned how to crawl through the entertainment center to get around the gate. We really need to babyproof the kitchen and get rid of the barriers. Kipp started putting the stuff on the cabinets, but evidently the cabinets are cheaper than we thought... the screws are kind of damaging them.

4. Either she's watched too many Discovery channel things about snakes or she's just mimicking us yawning, but she's taken to opening her mouth as biiiiig as she can. Just because. I'm trying to get her to do it and say "aaah" because won't the doctor be happy if she'll do that?

5. I'd read and heard that kids with Ds, their teeth grow in out of order. I thought maybe Kiki was spared that 'cause her two bottom teeth came in, then her two top teeth, then two more on the top, and then.... one on the bottom. And then her molars on the top, leaving a big gap between them and her front teeth. And it looks like her molars on the bottom are poking through now as well. And only three bottom teeth in the front... I was sure she had four. I'm beginning to wonder if she lost it or broke it.... every time she falls unexpectedly, she bites her tongue. And I noticed she grinds her teeth. Ack! I was supposed to ask the doctor when to take her to a dentist! Man, I need to make a list.

And tomorrow we Christmas shop. Ho ho ho!!!

Holiday Movie

Just got an email from our local chapter with this link to a story about The Child King movie.

I hadn't heard of it before, but it looks amazing, and so I thought I'd pass it along. :)

Pretender

I feel like such a pretender these days. Such a wannabe. And now I feel like I'm bragging.

But here's the thing. Okay, supposedly I'm the mother of a child with special needs. But then I spend like five minutes watching Kiki play or babble to her mirror or laugh or eat or anything and everything and I think, "Where? Where is the special need part?"

The disability hat? Doesn't fit my daughter.

What has changed? My attitude, and that's all.

I feel so good these days. It's wonderful to wake up in the morning and not remind myself, like a mantra, "She will be okay. She will be okay." I don't have to anymore. Because suddenly I believe; I truly believe and have absolute faith in her.

It's also exactly a month and a week after I started taking Prozac. So you know.

Yep. That's my big confession for the year.

Now for bragging rights! She's pushing her walker car all over the living room. She'll walk it until she runs into something, then she'll drop into a squat and then sit and then crawl somewhere to do something else. She's also begun scooting around on her butt when she's carrying something somewhere. Hopefully she'll soon discover that walking is more efficient.

We're currently working with puzzles. She's not quite got it yet, but she's getting real close. And she's occasionally saying "Up" when she wants in my lap.

Havethe day off today so I'm gonna go play with my baby!!

I Love You

So Kiki has made up her own sign for "I love you." We were trying to teach her to cross her arms across her chest for "I love you," but we kind of gave up on that a few weeks ago.

Then Kipp noticed that most of the time when he says "I love you" to her, she tucks both of her thumbs under her armpits, like she's flapping like a bird. I said "I love you" to see if she would do it for me -- and she did. And she's immensely proud of herself for it too!

And she's taking more and more steps behind her little walker car, even beginning to push it by herself.

And yesterday was one of those moments I wished I had a camcorder attached to my forehead. She treated me to an impromptu puppet show. I am not even exagerating!

She started off her story by holding her arms over her head, her hands pointing down in a great imitation of Daniel doing the crane in Karate Kid, and growling loudly.

Then she looked at her right hand and babbled to it. Then she babbled to her left hand. Then she babbled to her right hand again. Finally one last babble to her left hand.

And then she fell forward, slapping the floor with her hands in a great big bow. Then sat up and giggled merrily.

This kid is going to be a great storyteller one day, I just know it. She's been composing these stories in front of her mirror for months now, but I've never seen her do it without the mirror.

Speaking of her poor mirror, it is in such sad shape. Most of the animals don't even talk anymore (only the lion and the elephant.) But I love the way she interacts with her mirror, making up these long stories and watching herself perform them, so Kipp and I ordered her a new one for Christmas.

This is the new and improved mirror she's getting!

Winter Colds

It's been busy since Mom and JP have been here, and all of us have been sick. Kiki finished her 10 days of antibiotics, and she's still snotty, so I called the doctor today. She had an appointment set for Monday for her shots, but I knew they wouldn't give 'em to her if she wasn't feeling well anyway, so...

So we took her in today, Mom and I, and met her new pediatrician for the first time. I think I've mentioned before that Kiki warms up to men faster than women, so I kind of figured she'd like him right away anyway. And he wore glasses and had face fuzz, so she was in heaven. The first thing he did was get down to face-to-face level with her, give her a big grin, and tell her how pretty she was. Instantly charmed, she held out her hand to him, which she only does to people she approves of, and he kissed the palm of her hand which passes the test. She giggled and was his.

And you know? Anybody who is that charmed by my child? Is aces in my book.

I asked him a couple of questions about preventive care to test the waters, make sure he knew more than I do, which he does, thank God. Thyroid checks, ENT checks, X-rays of her spine starting at 2 years, all of that. So he passed my test too.

I asked him about her bald spots. He said it definitely looked like an autoimmune response and asked if it coincided with her recent cold. It hasn't really; it started about 1 to 2 weeks before she started getting snotty, but she did start this snot thing about 2 months ago (I think) as well, and we were treating with Benadryl because she didn't have any signs of infection, and her previous doctor thought it might be allergies.

He is setting us up with a dermatologist just in case, but he assured me he's seen this before, and he checked out every inch of her scalp. He said in his experience, the hair has always grown back. He said also that with this kind of autoimmune response, we should count ourselves lucky that her system focused on her hair follicles and not something like her thyroid or pancreas, which it could also do.

So, you know, yay.

We're taking her back to the hair stylist tomorrow for bangs, regardless. I know she'll look a little thin on the sides but you know what? I keep having to pin her hair back to keep it out of her face, and if that's what's contributing to the thinness and breakage around the sides, then it's never going to stop. I need the hair out of her face, out of her nose.

I'd post pics of her current 'do, but there's no point. It's not a haircut right now so much as a trim; it doesn't look any different.

Let's see. In other news, Bri's Christmas concert was tonight. She's in choir and she had a solo! She did absolutely awesome; no stage fright and no fear of the microphone. I was so proud!!! I even let Chris hold the videocamera for some of the concert, so he was pretty happy.

Thanksgiving was fantastic. My brother-in-law sells these ceramic smokers, and so he treated us by smoking a turkey. My father-in-law made prime rib to go with. So we were all well-fed with yummy stuff. Kiki ate bunches, and I was soo happy because she'd been turning away meals for a couple of days leading up to that. And then to top off the evening, she managed to convince the whole family she was saying "I love you."

I remain unconvinced because I never heard it. Little stinker.

I'm also reasonably convinced she can walk, only she's refusing to do so. I've caught her standing without support for a full 30 seconds before she realized what she was doing. She sits down with complete control; she doesn't just fall back on her butt anymore. And she cruises from furniture to furniture without any effort. If she's engrossed with the spinny thing on her walker/car, I can make her take up to 6 steps before she stops.

She will NOT walk if you hold her hands. The minute you grab her hands, she kicks her feet up and hangs like a little monkey. So Kipp has taken to standing in front of her until she pulls herself up to standing using his legs. Then while she's hanging onto his pants, he'll start walking backwards and she'll follow. But touch her hands? Monkey time.

I like to think she's holding out until Christmas Day, because this will be her Christmas gift to me. I only hope I'm holding the video camera at the time!

Alopecia Sounds Like a Girl's Name

After further exhaustive internet research, driven by my own innate vanity and gut-eating guilt, I've discovered that alopecia traction can be caused by hairstyles such as, you know, tight ponytails and whatnot.

So the balding areas along the sides of her head and at her forehead? Definitely my fault. And I've been poring through pics and watching that hairline recede through them. Why didn't I notice before?

It does not explain the smooth round bald spot on the back of her head, though. So yeah, I still need to confer with the Doc and hopefully not begin bawling and confessing all my sins in a virtual monsoon of guilt, guilt, guilt.

It's a good thing I'm not a practicing Catholic. I'd probably never be able to leave the confessional.

I wonder if priests keep a pot to piss in in their confessional booths.

I wonder if I'm going to hell for that question alone.

So this morning after her first haircut I still had to deal with snotty hair and moreover trying to figure a way to keep it out of her face while she ate. I used little clippies, which worked for a bit until she rubbed her peaches and cereal in her hair (as she's wont to do), so it took much readjusting and it was slightly frustratng and ended up with me demanding from my mother, "Why didn't I just have them cut it all off? Why? Why?????"

Easy answer: My husband would have stopped speaking to me. But since right now he's messaging me about buying an XBox upgrade? I don't think that would be so bad.

Snot Factories

So we got new medical insurance, so we had to get new doctors. We bid a sad farewell to Kiki's pediatrican, whom I adore, and venured off into another office (one that she recommended of course!)

It's a very cool office, actually, and very kid-friendly. I of course had to fill out all the prerequisite paperwork, but much to my surprise and pleasure, Kiki sat on a little kid chair at a little kid table completely happy with a pamphlet the entire time it took me to fill it all out.

In the exam room itself, there was a shelf under the exam table that contained toys! Toys! Toys! which Kiki found immediately and immediately proceeded to pull down and play with. She has no trouble making herself at home.

When I was filling out the paperwork, I knew I should mention somewhere on it about her having Ds, but I just couldn't find an appropriate place, and so then suffered a mini-lecture from the new pediatrician (who is not really her new pediatrician, but was filling in for her new pediatrician whom we haven't yet met) who began to assume that Kiki was undiagnosed (sigh) and then on and on about the many things we need to be proactive about because of the Ds ad nauseum. Thank you. I'll remember next time.

She did see both Kiki's eardrums (yay!) and there was no sign of an ear infection, but she gave her antibiotics for the obvious and raging sinus infection, and in the midst of all this (and cookies too!) I forgot to ask about something that I had just begun to notice a few weeks ago. Or maybe a month ago. No more than a month ago, but more and more over the last couple of weeks.

Anyway. Fast forward to today, Kiki's first haircut! We took her to Cookie Cutters, and it was awesome. I was fully expecting Kiki to throw a fit, but she was absolutely thrilled with the red fire engine they sat her in, and she behaved throughout the entire haircut. Luckily her snot flow was also slightly abated (Thank you, Benadryl)

(I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, Why would you take a child with an uncommonly snotty nose to an establishment full of children whose parents would quite likely prefer not to have their own ilk get sick? You're thinking, Can you be so oblivious? The answer is no, I am not oblivious. I am selfish. There is a difference.)

(Besides, sinus infections are gross but not contagious.)

And so, because the hair stylist was so sweet, and also because she started talking about other kids she knew who have Ds, I decided to ask her, you know, instead of a doctor.

"Do you see this bald patch?" I said, "And this one? And these around the sides? Are those normal? That's normal for kids, right? They lose their hair when they're babies, right?"

Sadly, no.

"Is it because I'm always pulling her hair up and back? Am I pulling out her hair?"

Sadly, probably not. It looks like alopecia to me, she says, but I'm not a doctor. You should talk to a doctor.

"It'll grow back, right?" I say.

And she says, "The thing to remember is, it's not painful and it's not because she's sick."

Oh, GREAT. Thanks.

So Kiki did not get bangs, because if she got bangs, she'd have visible bald spots on both sides of her head. Her hair is shorter now though, but still in her face, so honestly? I don't know that we've really accomplished much more than the ever-important milestone, Mini Baggie Of Hair.

I was going to keep all of it. But I did not after all.

Do I sound bitter? I think I sound bitter.

Busy busy busy

Mom and JP drove into town about 2 weeks ago. Things have been on fast forward ever since. They're supposedly retired, but they brought work with them, and between their work and our work, we sort of bounce around each other like pinballs.

Kiki has been sick and teething for the past week. When I say teething, I mean there's five big teeth coming in all at once. On top of a sinus infection which luckily hasn't gone into her ears. Anyway between the two things, and possibly the change in routine and the new people, she's been uncharacteristically grumpy. Just about every day she has a crying fit and she's completely inconsolable, even with me.

Early last week she started throwing a tantrum every time we put her in the high chair. A few days ago she stopped eating altogether if we put her in it. Now she will eat a couple of bites or so, but only if she can wander around freely and only if it's off one of our plates. We've resorted to giving her Pediasure. We know she's hungry because she grabs madly for food, but then once it's in her mouth, she starts crying and spits it out. Sore throat or sore gums, we don't know for sure, but it's heart breaking.

We're stocked up in Orajel and baby Tylenol and teethers and Pediasure and biter biscuits and antibiotics and hoping this will pass quickly.

Meanwhile, of course, I've caught her cold and Kipp caught her cold and Mom is feeling under the weather and it's really getting cold outside.

Since the first day Mom has been in town, she's been insisting Kiki needs a haircut. Kipp grumbled and resisted until this week when he had to deal with her snot-encrusted hair when she first got out of bed. "Cut it," he said, "for God's sake, cut it!"

We'll be doing that sometime this week, I hope.

Now added to her signing repetoire: bath, bedtime, block, and ball. She knows what she's talking about too. The other day, she signed ball at me, then crossed the room to get her ball, and happily played ball with me for a while. When she signs block, she gets all excited when I gather up her blocks to stack them with her.

When her speech therapist was here, she tried to get Kiki to stand up (Kiki is very stubborn about doing this at someone else's behest), and said "Up up up!" to encourage her. Instead of standing, Kiki simply repeated, "Up up up!" with the same inflection. Her ST and I stared at each other, and each said, "Did you hear that?"

We could not get her to do it again.

When she talks to herself in her mirror now, she often includes her toys and several arm gestures. It looks like she's telling herself stories.

And that's all the news here for now!

Good Day

Today was a good day. I say this with great satisfaction because I have to confess, I haven't been able to say that with conviction very often lately. And I know I'm blessed, and I know my life is good, and I love my husband and my children and even my dogs, though I'm convinced the canines are trying to figure out a way to kill me and still guarantee they'll be fed every day.

Some things are a little too personal to talk about on a public diary, and then somedays I just don't care. So, you know, TMI alert!

But not today.

Today instead I will tell you about my great day. My great day started with me procrastinating on work (when I say "start", I mean after: getting breakfast fed to the husband, the kids, the dogs, then myself, then mediating a deal negotiated by the two older children about how to share the PC and the XBox for the duration of the day).

I subsequently blew the whole negotiation out of the water by comandeering the XBox360 all by myself and refused to share and by doing so somehow managed to create an environment in which Bri ended up playing with Kiki and there was much rejoicing. Yay!

I then had this amazing revelation. One of my key needs is alone time. It always has been. Perhaps I'm an introvert. I don't know. I know this. I know that if I get to a point where I'm throwing a tantrum because I don't get to do what I want to do RIGHT NOW RIGHT THIS INSTANT LEAVE ME ALONE, then I need a time out, and that time out must involve a huge personal bubble, roughly the size of Texas.

The reality is there is no such thing as a personal bubble the size of Texas when you're the mom of a pre-toddler, step-mom to a pre-teen and oh-my-God-he's-going-to-be-a-pre-teen-too-any-day-now, dog mother of two very people-oriented dogs, and a husband who has social activity needs that run roughly on the scale of Paris Hilton.

I cannot escape them by watching TV. They gather around and want to know, "What are you watching? Who's that? What's going on? Where's the remote? Is that the remote? Can I see the remote? Can we watch something else? I'm huuuuungry."

I cannot escape them by playing video games. They gather around and comment on everything I make my character do. They want me to kill innocent villagers. They want me to slap annoying NPCs. They want me to give them the controller so they can show me how it's done. And also, they want to know if they can get on the computer, so then they can talk to themselves while they do so. Which I do, too, of course, but it's annoying when other people do it.

I cannot escape them by locking myself in the bathroom. They have knuckles they use to do this knocking thing. And they have high-pitched voices they use to simulate danger encroaching upon their very souls, evil danger that I, only I, can conquer.

But I discovered one thing I can do, one single thing that I can do in absolute peace and privacy and enjoy a personal bubble of at least the size of Rhode Island.

House cleaning.

Also? Give a pre-teen the choice of scrubbing a kitchen floor or entertaining the baby? Guess which one she will pick every time?

I have discovered nirvana. Eden. Heaven. And it is good.

Also my kitchen is spotless.

And then we went out to dinner to watch a friend sing a gig at a local Mexican restaurant wherein my loving fabulous husband insisted I drink a margarita. Ahhh, bliss.

I hope everyone is having as fabulous a weekend as I am!

Going Too Fast

I just sent out emailed photos to friends and family, and almost every one has commented on how long her hair has gotten. Now while she still hasn't figured out the patented hair-flip gesture, I have to show off just how she can make it fly by shaking her head to music. She's a head-banger, people.

So temperatures have dropped again. It was actually 65 to 68 in the house all day until I got cranky and switched over to the heater to get it warmed up to 70. Our AC is set to 73, so 70 was just chilly enough for me to be comfy. And it's all about me, of course.

The kids were out of school today, so I got 'em this morning and we spent the day playing video games. Well, Chris played on the PC, Bri on the XBox360, and I pretended to work on the laptop, while Kiki cruised from electro-zombie to electro-zombie, trying vainly to find someone interested in playing with simple, mundane, completely non-digital blocks.

And of course Sugar was sooooooo thrilled that the Kids! the Kids are here! The BIG kids, not the scary-miniature-kid thing who bites and pulls, but the Big Kids! Yay! So she was all bouncy, and whenever the kids showed her the slightest attention, that bouncy kicked into high gear, causing her to run over and across Kiki at least 3 times before I announced that Sugar no longer existed and NO ONE WAS ALLOWED TO MAKE EYE CONTACT WITH HER EVER AGAIN.

I know, I know. High-energy dog with sheep herding in her genes, confined to indoor space and not much exercise = ALL MY FAULT. I get it. I know. Call the ASPCA already. I'm fine with it.

Anyway I've already decided the family is spending the weekend cleaning the house. And I'm sending Bri out with Sugar to run her around the neighborhood. I'd send her out with Chris but, umm, I don't think Chris can handle it. He definitely can NOT handle Honey, who is basically a bull on a leash and even Kipp has a hard time holding her back. The funny thing? Honey has obedience training, but Sugar has always been innately leash-trained. Isn't that odd? Honey has NEVER quite gotten the whole leash concept other than it's just to, you know, slow her down a little.

Yes, our dogs are really named Honey and Sugar. We adopted Honey first, and she is honey-colored, and she is actually Honey Bear. Then we adopted Sugar and couldn't decide on a name, and I jokingly suggested Sugar Bear -- you know, the Sugar Smacks mascot, and also with the Bear at the end and the Sugar aspect versus the Honey aspect we already have -- and it just stuck.

Although in the normal course of the day, it's usually Honey Bear and Sugar Booger.

I just noticed that I wrote 21 blogs in October. 21 for 21? Does that count, if just for the irony factor?

Voted!

We voted! We voted!

Yeah, so we were part of that Missourian crowd who first went to the wrong place and then had to travel to the right one just to vote. Luckily they're only within 2 miles of each other, and 2 miles of us, so it's not like we were running around all over town. No, wait. That IS all over town.

It's a small town.

Okay. Anyway, as we were waiting to sign in, the women in front of us started talking to and playing with Kiki. One of the women then made the comment that she thought it was great that so many people were bringing their kids to the polls. I thought at first, what an odd thing to say, because it never occurred to me to NOT bring Kiki, you know?

Then she continued, "When I was a kid, my parents NEVER took me when they voted. So when I was 18 and voted the first time, I was completely lost."

And you know what? My parents never took me voting either. I mean probably my Mom did when I was a baby, but not when I was older. And also, it wouldn't have occurred to me to take my older kids with us to vote either, but you know what? Maybe it would be a good, educational thing. It's just something I never thought about before.

Anyway. The three of us went voting and we are very proud of ourselves. (I wish the I Voted sticker was clearer; my cell phone is not the best camera.